ClassACT HR73 - Alert 3: Act Now to Support Non-Profit Local Journalism

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Alert 3: Act Now to Support Non-Profit Local Journalism

Alert 3: Act Now to Support Non-Profit Local Journalism

December 19, 2025 11:01 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

As traditional news outlets dry up across America, non-profit local newsrooms still provide communities in both red and blue states with essential coverage of their lawmakers, schools, and neighbors. Many national newspapers and networks cower before the growing threats to their independence, but journalists in these scrappy independent newsrooms take on ICE, tech titans, and unscrupulous governors in reporting that has won at least one Pulitzer Prize. These local news sites can rebuild the bonds among readers who hold dissimilar political beliefs – and strengthen communal ties that are frayed by a dearth of coverage of shared problems, such as food scarcity, hospital closures and environmental destruction.

As members of the ClassACT HR73 Justice and Civic Engagement Committee, we ask you to join us in supporting these non-profit local news outlets. They give citizens across the country a voice to speak about the local and national challenges they face. These innovative organizations for reporting and publishing local news join mainstream newspapers and broadcast outlets, such as NPR stations, in the fight to keep democracy alive.

CALLS TO ACTION:

Find non-profit news sites that covers your state and community. Regularly read their articles and share them on social media. You can use these links to search for the newsrooms nearest you:
- Find Your News
- States Newsroom

Become a member of these newsrooms or subscribe to one. If your community or city is fortunate enough still to have a local newspaper, subscribe to it.

If you have journalistic experience, volunteer to help train young journalists and provide advice to local non-profit newsrooms.

If you have experience in building businesses or non-profits, volunteer to help these news outlets develop strategic plans or become financially stable.

Continue to support your local NPR and PBS stations because they are often the sole source of local news coverage in many communities, particularly in rural areas.

Support organizations such as Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press that advocate for journalists who work in both small-town newsrooms and international news bureaus.

Call your House Representative and Senator to request that they sign on to the Local Journalism Sustainability Act (H.R. 4514)

Here is a link to the telephone numbers of House of Representative members
Here is a link to the phone numbers of all one hundred U.S. Senators

BACKGROUND

How many News Outlets Are Near You?

Map: Medill Local News InitiativeSource: Local News Initiative Database

Over the last decade the demise of more than 3,500 local newspapers has left countless towns bereft of news about the key institutions and leaders that shape their members’ lives. Almost 200 counties nationwide no longer have newspapers. The number of journalists employed by newspapers has shrunk by more than 75 percent since 2005.

Congress’ defunding of National Public Radio this year and the increasing acquisitions of privately owned radio and television stations by big conglomerates stifle independent journalistic voices even more.

To fill this vacuum, journalists, many of them veterans of shuttered newspapers, and philanthropists have established non-profit digital news sites across the country. These outlets such as the Gothamist in New York City ferret out the stories that the biggest papers in the largest cities often miss or neglect.

Sometimes these social enterprises take the place of a newspaper that has closed, as when residents in Harpswell, Maine banded together to start the Harpswell Anchor in 2020. As big city dailies slash their statehouse coverage, many non-profits like the Texas Tribune keep unflinching eyes on state governments to ensure that citizens know what governors, lawmakers and regulators are doing.

New York Focus Statewide Community Listening Tour

The reporters and editors at these feisty enterprises are often young and idealistic, eager to investigate the corruption and neglect that are often overlooked otherwise as America’s “news desert” widens. One of the most successful ventures is New York Focus whose founders recognized the need for in-depth coverage of the power and resources that New York’s state government in Albany wields. The investigations pursued by the New York Focus team haver inspired legislation to curb sexual violence in New York state prisons as well as the abuses that often surround foreclosure sales.

Other non-profit news sites have stepped up to continue investigative reporting, when many established papers lack the resources for in-depth examinations. Mississippi Today won a Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 2023 when reporter Anna Wolfe exposed the scandal of $77 million in state welfare funds being misappropriated or stolen. This past May the ground-breaking non-profit ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, its eighth Pulitzer, for reporting on the consequences of delayed care for pregnant mothers because of stricter abortion laws.

Along with traditional beats like health care, education and the environment, non-profit news sources like CalMatters have widened their focus to examine the consequences of exploding technological change. CalMatters has looked at the actions of ICE in Los Angeles as well as at the state’s failure to curb the increase in deaths on California’s highways.

Reporters and editors at the Sacramento-based publication have won national awards for a series on the fight against fentanyl as well as state awards for a project on California’s water crisis. This year CalMatters received First Place, General Excellence, Medium-Sized Newsroom from the Online News Association, beating out powerhouses like Mother Jones.

Essential to realizing the potential of non-profit news sites are other non-profits that help local journalists set up an operation and then guide them through the stages of growth. Often these mentor non-profits also provide the financial subsidies essential to launch new outlets and keep established ones afloat. The best known of these organizations include the Institute for Non-profit News with more than 500 newsrooms in its network, and American Journalism Project, a venture philanthropy that invests in and builds digital non-profit newsrooms. Other creative non-profits are Rebuild Local News, which promotes local news public policies at the state and local level, and Report for America, which places reporters in newsrooms to cover issues that otherwise might be overlooked.

During the last five years House members on both sides of the aisle have introduced the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. This bill proposes an individual tax credit for local newspaper subscriptions, payroll credit for compensating journalists, and tax credits for small businesses that advertise in local news outlets. Rep. John Mannion (D-NY) reintroduced the bill again in July and referred it to the House Ways and Means Committee for action in the current Congress.

State officials and lawmakers have also pushed to relieve the financial burdens on local news outlets by adopting similar tax credit legislation or establishing innovative programs like New York’s Newspaper and Media Jobs Program, which allocates $90 million to retain and hire journalists. In June California expanded its original $22 million funding for its Local News Fellowship Program to place journalists in newsrooms across the state.

As billionaire owners of national media increasingly shape coverage to reflect their own ideological and financial preferences, rebuilding local news through both traditional and digital non-profit outlets matters. Flourishing local news organizations offer a means to keep fair, independent and objective voices alive and to restore trust in the press. Non-profit newsrooms grounded in the communities they serve help us all dodge the encroachment of unmoored algorithms that too often have the power to determine what we read and how we think.

*Ronan Farrow, The New Yorker at 100, Directed by Marshall Curry, Netflix, 2025, streaming video.