The Badger Project, the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, Madison 365, the Wausau Pilot & Review and Door County Knock all received $100,000 grants announced on Oct. 16 by Press Forward.
365 Media Foundation provides news coverage that starts conversations, finds lasting solutions, builds community, invites action, fosters dialogue among diverse communities, and encourages emerging leaders of color. Its online and print publications, such as Madison365 and Blueprint365, tell stories from a lens of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
The Badger Project is a nonpartisan journalism nonprofit that focuses on politics, campaign finance, government, and law enforcement in Wisconsin, with an emphasis on covering these things in rural areas and news deserts.
Door County Knock advances the truth and centers and drives understanding of critical issues that affect Door County residents’ lives. It also holds powerful institutions accountable to the people, including by investigating betrayals of public trust and other abuses of power.
The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service provides professional, evidence-based, nonpartisan reporting to its readers, primarily in Black and Latinx communities. The news service celebrates the resilience of residents by consistently spotlighting the many ordinary people who do extraordinary things, educates readers by connecting them to resources that can help uncomplicate their busy lives, and reports on issues that create much-needed dialogue while holding institutions and leaders accountable.
Wausau Pilot & Review delivers in-depth reporting and analysis that improves local decision-making. It seeks to drive the public conversation, set the agenda on key issues, and empower people through insight, information, and engagement. The independent nonprofit newsroom is devoted to hard-hitting journalism that serves the people of central Wisconsin.
A total of 205 small local news outlets – including one in every U.S. state – will receive a share of $20 million to close persistent coverage gaps in their communities, thanks to funding from Press Forward, the nationwide movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news.
Motivated by the extraordinary quality and number of proposals, Press Forward is funding twice as many news organizations as it anticipated initially through its first open call. The recipients, the majority receiving $100,000 in general operating support, were selected from a total of 931 proposals from newsrooms with annual budgets of less than $1 million.
The grant recipients are a bright mosaic of independent, non-partisan sources reimagining what local news looks like across America.
“These newsrooms are proof that we are seeing a moment of transformation, where new and longstanding are stepping up to create a new story for local news,” said Dale R. Anglin, Director, Press Forward. “Each newsroom plays a vital public service role in its community – providing trustworthy local news and information in places where no other sources may exist. Independent newsrooms need community support to survive. We hope that more people will subscribe and donate to them.”
A searchable database listing all recipients is on Press Forward’s website.
Press Forward is a nationwide movement to strengthen democracy by revitalizing local news and information. Its growing coalition of 60-plus funders has committed to invest more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms, close longstanding gaps in journalism coverage, advance public policy that expands access to local news and scale infrastructure the sector needs to thrive. Press Forward is housed at The Miami Foundation. For more, visit pressforward.news.
