Free Press has developed a database to help journalists keep communities informed and safe during the volatile weeks ahead. Check it out here! 

Nico Gendron is conducting an information needs assessment of Gen Z teenagers across Mid-Missouri as part of her Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellowship work. She's found that these teens unanimously agreed that they do not see themselves “fairly” represented in the media. 

Kevin Douglas Grant looks at projects (including the LPC) that will, in the coming year, bring together newsrooms, facilitators, and funders to forge a framework for revitalizing local news with public service at the center.

In October 2018, 20 students worked with Internews and National Geographic Photo Camp to create photo stories and essays from four locations in Puerto Rico, a little more than a year after Hurricane Maria.

The Laundromat Project's People Powered Challenge is a yearly peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. While the Challenge only accounts for a small portion of The Laundromat Project's yearly budget, Executive Director Kemi Ilesanmi says that the real value of the challenge is as an opportunity to build community and lay the groundwork for independently sustaining it. 

In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Justin Auciello is nurturing the citizen correspondent movement across Puerto Rico. 

jesikah maria ross, Community Engagement Strategist at Capitol Public Radio, shares ten strategies she developed while designing a series of public conversations called "Hunger in the Farm-to-Fork Capital."

Olivia Henry mentors USC Annenberg Health Journalism fellows who have received an additional grant to support collaboration with their communities. Henry works with reporters to develop engagement strategies and implement new tools. She also works to shift reporters’ mentality about their relationship with community members with which they are engaging. Henry shared with us some of the engagement experiments she has worked on with journalists.

Last January the University of Oregon’s Engaged Journalism class carried out an information ecosystem assessment of nearby La Pine, Oregon. We were happy to help guide the survey, and even hop on the bus with the Engaged Journalism class for one of their trips. One of the UO students we got to know, Emily Poole, shared these reflections on the process.

One year ago, Hurricane Maria tore into Dominica, causing widespread damage, loss of life, and severe disruption to the country’s communication networks. Local and international responders worked to help around 65,000 people. But how did those people let aid providers know what they needed? When help arrived, did it meet people’s needs? Did Dominicans have a say? 

“Our audience expects us to be a guide when it comes to issues such as immigration, health, and how, in general, to operate in American society,” says Univision host Jorge Ramos. Check out this article that's part of the American Press Institute’s Strategy Studies series about fostering collaborations between mainstream and ethnic media outlets.

Listening Post Collective project NOISE Omaha is working to "reclaim and inform the narrative of north Omaha." Check out NOISE director Dawaune Hayes' amazing TEDxCreighton talk on how NOISE is using information to disrupt injustice.

What types of solutions to political, geographic, and cultural polarization can we find when local journalists, citizens, and nonprofit and university representatives come together?

“The potential for nonprofits to offer a radical alternative to commercial media is being lost.”

Adriana Gallardo lays out three problems that are keeping public media from fulfilling its mission to create “programming that involves creative risks and that addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities."

For the Houston's nearly 40,000 Vietnamese residents, and for many more in Greater Houston, Saigon Radio is a central hub for news and information and is now playing a central role in helping to direct rescue efforts amid the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.

HuffPost is taking its show on the road starting this month, with a bus tour of 25 cities across the U.S. In each city, HuffPost staff will pull in with a fully outfitted bus and interview residents about what’s been on their minds.

Student journalists are the next generation, and they’ve been picking up the slack of gutted local newsrooms and indifferent national outlets.

Madeleine Bair chats with Nigel Mugamu, founder of 263Chat, a media outlet that uses Twitter conversations, WhatsApp groups, and videos to engage Zimbabweans in conversations about national affairs, about how he plans to take these conversations offline to reach communities without internet access. 

Plenas are sometimes known as "singing newspapers," giving the latest updates on what people are feeling and the news of the day. 

Anthony Ponce left his job as an NBC reporter to start a podcast out of his Lyft car. Each episode is centered around conversations sparked by thought-provoking question of the week such as: “Do you believe in signs?” and “What keeps you up at night?”

For the traditional media industry looking to survive in the digital world, it can look at the nonprofit world for new solutions, according to Sam Ford and Jeff Pundyk, authors of this opinion piece. For-profit media companies can learn from them — if they are willing to collaborate in unconventional ways.

Check out some of the creative ways news and other organizations have used SMS and messaging platforms, with some ideas for how we could extend these mediums even further. Listening Post NOLA at WWNO gets a shout! 

Madeleine Bair asks, "How can we create a media ecosystem that better serves today’s America — a country where immigrants and their U.S.-born children make up more than one-quarter of the overall population?" 

On June 22, City Bureau was awarded a $50,000 prototype grant from Democracy Fund and the Knight Foundation — here’s what they plan to do next.