More local news coverage is coming to Los Angeles, good news for the city and its multitudinous communities, and for democracy itself, as everyone who recognizes the power of the press and cares about, well, the truth will attest. The American Journalism Project (AJP) and a team of philanthropies and individual donors have raised nearly $15 million to beef up the L.A. news beat. The money will establish a new nonprofit called the L.A. Local News Initiative that will support hyper-local news-gathering organizations, create new ones, and invest in collaborative reporting among a network of some 20 editorial and educational partners. It will also fund increased capacity at two existing nonprofit news outlets: the L.A.-focused LAist, part of the member-supported, multiplatform public media organization Southern California Public Radio, and Cal Matters, a nonprofit newsroom focused on California politics and policy.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is an anchor funder, committing $5 million over three years, starting in 2024. The Spiegel Family Fund and the American Journalism Project are other anchor funders. Additional money has come from Annenberg Foundation, Weingart Foundation, California Community Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, Jane and Ron Olson, Leslie Weisberg and Jim Hyman, and Monica C. Lozano.
The project came about largely at the behest of local philanthropy. “We heard from several philanthropists based in Los Angeles that they were concerned that there wasn’t enough local news in their community,” said Sarabeth Berman, CEO of American Journalism Project, which is itself a philanthropic initiative, one committed to helping local news outlets build sustainable business models. “Our general approach has been to respond to local energy.” To date, AJP has distributed $60.7 million to 47 grantees across 33 states. (It also has a cool landing page that “types” its mission in an old courier font — very heart warming for those of us who once worked at an actual printed publication and/or used a typewriter.)
In L.A., AJP spearheaded an extensive community listening project in partnership with local civic leaders. “We did pretty significant research, talking to 900 folks across L.A. in six different languages [including English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Armenian, Korean, and Uto-aztecan]” said Berman. “We were looking into where they are getting local news. Where do they see gaps?”
These conversations identified two key news holes: a lack of adequate community-level reporting, and coverage of how regional and state-level policies impact Angelenos. They also revealed a tremendous amount of trust in the hyper-local publication Boyle Heights Beat, which serves the east-side neighborhood of Boyle Heights and its surroundings. “We realized that there are a lot of small community papers, but they are siloed,” said Berman. Armed with this insight, AJP and funders crafted the vision for L.A. Local News Initiative.
News flash: It’s not just journalists who miss real news
The L.A. Local News Initiative is the latest story in a national movement of philanthropy and local leaders partnering to support local news. In 2023, for example, the MacArthur Foundation led a coordinated effort of some 20 funders to route more than $500 million to local news operations over the next five years.
The money is sorely needed.
As an Angeleno and a journalist with plenty of unemployed and underemployed journalist friends, I see first hand the urgent need for more good journalism jobs in the city. I’ve also witnessed the paucity of local reporting on state actions around foster care, aging and homelessness — to name just a few areas — which means that people working on these issues in Los Angeles, or facing them, often have no idea that some great new policy was passed in Sacramento that could mean, among other things, real money for their cause.
The data backs up my experience: In January, the Los Angeles Times laid off more than 100 journalists. Since 2005, California has lost one-third of its newspapers and two-thirds of its working journalists (that is to say, journalists working at news outlets, rather than at Whole Foods processing Amazon returns). These city- and state-wide cuts mirror a disturbing national trend. In the last two decades, almost a third of the country’s newspapers have closed, eliminating nearly two-thirds of the journalism jobs with them.
What’s exciting to me about this initiative — in addition to the new reporting jobs it will add — is that it provides yet more proof that non-journalists value the work of real reporters. As Kristen Muller, chief content officer of grantee partner LAist, put it, “What we’re seeing is this awareness from other sectors that public participation is needed if you’re going to keep journalism alive — from donors, foundations and entrepreneurs. People trust local news. Still. That says a lot. It’s not as bleak as we can make it out to be.”
I’ve been covering place-based, multisector partnerships addressing systemic issues such as homelessness and inadequate support for our aging population. Gerun Riley, president of the Broad Foundation and a board member of the new initiative, said journalism is an area where local funders and other leaders see value in collaboration. “We have a lot of respect for each other’s work. If there’s the potential for partnerships, that’s really exciting. None of us can solve any of these problems on our own.”
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But wait! Isn’t L.A. already a media capital?
Here’s one question you may be asking: Even with the cuts at the L.A. Times, doesn’t L.A. still have plenty of other news sources? Aren’t big cities the news “haves,” in general, and rural “news deserts” the have-nots? Yes and no. Community newspapers play a particularly important role in a city as large, complex and diverse as L.A., and our current freebie weeklies and dailies aren’t doing enough. “People said, ‘I know my community is doing amazing things, but I don’t hear about it,” said Berman.
Kevin Merida, who sits on the board of the L.A. Local News Initiative and served most recently as the executive editor of the L.A. Times, following roles as editor-in-chief at ESPN’s digital platform Undefeated and managing editor at the Washington Post, said that L.A. news outlets must address the needs of vastly different populations living far from each other: “You have here this place that has all these different neighborhoods and communities, such a sprawling kind of place. You have all the diasporas here — the largest Chinese population outside of China, the largest community of Armenians outside Armenia. It’s hard to get your arms around as a news organization. It’s why you have a lot of community news organizations, people trying to bring news to a particular part of town. It’s needed.”
But L.A. is also a city of decision-makers and influencers, meaning a major daily like the L.A. Times must devote much of its resources to delivering on the biggest stories. “L.A. is central. Because it’s sophisticated here, you can’t ignore national and international news, the big issues that affect the country,” said Merida. “It’s a very challenging news environment. But it’s a place where people do care, as is evidenced by the money raised so far. If you have a strong, local news ecosystem, you have a strong, engaged public.”
While members of the Fourth Estate have been lamenting the death of journalism for more than a decade, Merida said he feels hopeful now. “I think there is more philanthropic interest and foundation interest, even outside the big ones. I think that’s a good sign. So I’m excited about it. I’m probably more optimistic than I’ve been in a long time.”
More papers, more reporters, more collaboration
The L.A. Local News Initiative is taking a multiprong, holistic approach to bolstering media in L.A. This includes founding and staffing the new nonprofit — right now, it is looking for a CEO and executive editor. It also is absorbing Boyle Heights Beat — which has funding from nine organizations, including The California Endowment, Stuart Foundation and Civic Space Foundation — and launching and operating similar community news publications across the city. The initiative is also infusing resources into LAist and CalMatters, activating and overseeing more shared reporting projects among its network of partners, and helping fund some three dozen new reporter and editor positions across the LA media landscape.
Current partners include not only LAist, CalMatters and Boyle Heights Beat, but also 102.3 FM KJLH, Beverly Hills Courier, Eastsider, L.A. TACO, Latino Media Collaborative, La Opinión, Spectrum News, USC Annenberg, Zócalo Public Square, Nguoi Viet News and Rafu Shimpo, the nation’s leading English-language, Japanese-American daily newspaper, among others. The 20 outlets have already begun working together around election coverage and engagement and other issues.
“It’s still the early days,” said LAist’s Muller. “In the last year, we’ve been sharing resources more and we are looking to do more of that across the city, building on this ecosystem approach, and creating a more formal structure around it. We are thinking about how we can do more advanced planning as a partner, rather than waiting until after a story is published.”
Muller gave me an example of shared reporting. When former Boyle Heights-based city councilmember José Luis Huizar was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for racketeering conspiracy and tax evasion this year, Boyle Heights Beat reporters did on-the-ground, community reaction reporting, while LAist was in the courtroom. Their work led to two separate articles with different angles. LAist published them both. “It was a good example of being able to do more together than we could separately. We’re looking for ways to tackle stories together like that,” Muller said. “That’s what is so exciting to me about this. I feel like we’re in this incredible period of experimentation and innovation in journalism. It’s a very different idea of what could be.”
Merida agreed that this collaborative approach to news gathering is a welcome shift away from the old, hyper-competitive model of journalism that he (and I) grew up with, in which news organizations and reporters fight to land the scoop. “A lot of that mentality has changed, and you see partnerships forming. I think it’s a result of realizing that you can’t always do the greatest journalism by yourself. A lot of times, the news organizations in the neighborhood have the sources and know the communities, but they lack data and don’t know each other,” he said. “We need to experiment with combining that more. I think there’s opportunity. I have my dreams here.”
Can philanthropy really seed sustainable news in an era of media meltdowns?
After this $15 million is gone, will these outlets start laying off reporters? Not if the project works, said Berman. “One of our focuses has been to help organizations build sustainable revenue. We are doing that with this team and have done it in many other markets by bringing in reader revenue, advertising and sponsorship, and more local philanthropy.” AJP funds jobs that can help nonprofit news organizations thrive, such as roles on a development team and in audience development.
For the Broad Foundation, which has supported individual reporter roles at the L.A. Times and PBS Newshour in the past, this foray into a larger media project furthers its current focus on improving L.A. “It is pretty well known that Eli tried to purchase the Los Angeles Times twice, both times with this fundamental belief that if L.A. was going to realize its potential and grow and evolve into the city we all believe it can and should be, having a really robust source of local news is critical and foundational,” said Riley.
If Eli Broad were gazing down on this new initiative from some magical afterlife, would he see this funding as addressing that need? “If we’re successful, which I hope and believe we will be,” said Riley, “I’m very hopeful that this is a meaningful step toward what he always saw as L.A.’s potential.”
