America is in the midst of a local news crisis. Newsrooms are shrinking and closing down, leaving cities across America with no local newspaper or paper of record. New Hampshire lost 9 percent of its outlets between 2004 and 2019, while those that remained had to do more with fewer reporting and editing resources. We know that without a robust local news ecosystem, there are real consequences for our communities and our democracy.
- Fewer reporters means less independent scrutiny on issues at the center of civic life;
- Misinformation, disinformation and propaganda spread rapidly;
- Public trust is severely undermined; and
- Confusion leads to a mistrust of actual facts and science.
As journalists, our job is to serve our community by keeping them informed on issues and events so they can make decisions, effect change, and build the communities they want to see. And even when newsrooms lose reporters, editors and resources, that need and that obligation don’t go away; we still have to provide that service.
Granite State News Collaborative partners are committed to doing just that.
None of us are willing to sit idly by and watch our communities become news deserts. The Granite State News Collaborative is a statewide collective of more than 20 local media, education and community partners working together to produce and share news stories on the issues that most impact our state. The partners work together to provide more information to more communities across New Hampshire than they could individually.
Even though the GSNC is a small nonprofit, because every partner is contributing to the effort, we are all able to take on and accomplish bold, innovative projects and initiatives.
Essentially the Collaborative exists to fill gaps in the local news ecosystem, which typically are people and resources.
This is done in several ways:
- We manage a news exchange where we provide partner content to all of the other partners they can cross-publish on any platform. These are stories of statewide impact and solutions stories. This gets more trusted information to more people in more ways.
- We also help our partners coordinate coverage of major events and issues with each other and help manage those efforts. This helps them conserve resources while actually providing more state and local news to their communities without sacrificing journalistic rigor and quality.
- Additionally, we have a team of investigative freelancers and data reporters who work directly with our partner editors to produce time and resource intensive stories and projects that need lots of research, data and investigation. We pay for the freelancers’ time, the outlets contribute editing time and everyone gets to run the stories.
- Finally we try to help diversify and re-stock newsrooms with new, emerging and nontraditional journalists. We do this by training and vetting them as well as acting as a conduit into local newsrooms. We also look for every opportunity to offer ongoing training to our newsroom partners.
All of our services are free to member outlets. However, every partner is required to contribute something to the common cause. We estimate that our partners, collectively and on average, contribute roughly $150,000 in in-kind services each year to the Collaborative. This culture is firmly established, it works for us, and it is how we’re able to accomplish as much as we do.
What we’re doing works!
Because we are working together and because of generous philanthropic and public support, we have been able to launch ambitious solutions focused investigative series on the impacts of and solutions for: exclusionary zoning practices; the effectiveness of proposed police reforms; the impacts and ramifications of the "divisive concepts" law; the treatment of indigenous people in New Hampshire; equity in NH education; environmental justice; and access to civic engagement, among many others.
We also collaborated to cover the 2022 midterm elections and the pandemic together, two firsts for New Hampshire. With NH PBS and the Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication, we launched a weekly digital public affairs series. We also have partnered with community members and The Fitzwater Center to produce four podcasts, allowing us all to provide more news to more people in more ways.
With community and media partners we helped launch the first ever Spanish-language news broadcast in NH and provided midterm election coverage in Spanish, two more firsts for New Hampshire.
Through our award-winning investigative work, podcasts and television series, we’ve not only reached communities across the state, but the policy makers with the power to make changes our communities want to see.
We are working hard to find solutions to the problems plaguing local news and would love your help in that mission.
We at the Granite State News Collaborative need your help. We are trying to raise $13,000 by Dec. 31 so that we can unlock an additional $13,000 in national matching funds.
We plan to use that money to:
- Continue our race and equity initiative which aims to investigate the systemic issues that exist in New Hampshire, rigorously report the impact of those disparities and surface potential solutions.
- Expand our Civic Documenter program which trains community members to cover local municipal meetings. This increases the accountability reporting local news outlets are able to do and gets you more information about what is happening in your town and school governments.
- Train more student and nontraditional journalists with the goal of connecting them with our local news partners so that we can diversify and strengthen our local news organizations for years to come.
None of this is possible without your help. Because the more than 20 partners in the GSNC are working together, each contributing whatever they can, a little bit goes a long way. No gift is too small. And if you can’t give, that is okay; just sending this email along to anyone you can think of who values the importance of local news would be a huge help. Can we count on you?
Current Issue - May 2024