The Granite State News Collaborative has received a $3,000 grant from the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation to support their Community Journalism Project. The project aims to get more women involved in their communities by training them to become citizen journalists by covering local governing boards.
“When local news and information systems are healthy it creates agency for marginalized
communities to engage in democracy, protect themselves, and build a sense of local
community,” said Director of the Granite State News Collaborative, Melanie Plenda. “This is especially true for women who can often be disproportionately impacted by decisions made at a local level such as affordable housing, education and economic opportunity.”
The pilot cohort of 10 citizen journalists will produce articles based on their coverage of local government meetings for local news outlets in the Collaborative’s network. Work will be overseen by a team of professional freelance editors to ensure the work is accurate and up to journalistic standards, Plenda said, adding that funding from the NH Women’s Foundation will be used to pay for project management and stipends for the pilot’s cohort of professional editors and citizen journalists.
“Women are too often under-represented in journalism and too often they aren't able to fully access or participate in their local government because of existing constraints on their resources and time,” Plenda said. “This pilot project can begin to address some of that through their lived experience and by determining the news value of what their local boards and committees are debating and discussing.”
The idea for a community journalism project began last spring when the Nackey S. Loeb School teamed up with instructor Richard Watts, founder of the Vermont-based Community News Service at the University of Vermont. Watts led the first cohort of Loeb School Community Journalism students, who learned journalism skills, including interviewing, media ethics, and public information requests.
The Collaborative will be working with Prof Watts and Executive Director of the Nackey S. School of Communications, Laura Simoes, whose program will provide the training based on Watt’s curriculum. Dr. Kristen Nevious, ED at Franklin Pierce University's Marlin Fitzwater Center will help oversee and supervise students in the program.
“All of these partners have extensive experience not only in journalism, but journalism training,” Plenda said. “Further, our freelance editors, the majority of whom are women, have dozens of years of professional journalism experience and will oversee the articles and assignments.”
Plenda, who has more than 20 years of journalism experience and 4 years of project management experience with the Collaborative, will coordinate the effort.
The goal is to begin producing at least 75 local news pieces over the course of the pilot period and Plenda said that at least two local news outlets serving predominantly underserved news areas, will have increased the number of local governance coverage.
“We will be bringing more women--whether students or members of the public--into the civic process by giving them the education and information they need to cover these meetings and small stipends that will afford them the chance to do so,” she said. “And we will be strengthening local news outlets, and in turn their communities, which often lack the staffing capacity to cover the meetings where some of the most consequential issues are being debated and decided.”
While this is a pilot program, Plenda said she anticipates continuing the program beyond the four month pilot period.
“We are already beginning to work with other local partners to garner support that will help us build the program into our budgeting process for 2023,” Plenda said.
Since 2020, Collaborative partners cross-published more than 4,000 stories – about 600 of which were produced by Collaborative freelancers. Plenda said there is an established working relationship and infrastructure in place to help bring this project to successful fruition.
Anyone interested in contributing to the effort click here. Now through December 31, NewsMatch–a collaborative fundraising movement to support independent, public service journalism like GSNC– and a national foundation will match each match every donation up to $1,000 dollar for dollar. In other words, for every dollar donated, GSNC gets an additional two dollars in matching funds. For more information contact Melanie Plenda at melanie.plenda@collaborativenh.org or visit collaborativenh.org