On Feb. 21, the Knight Foundation announced an investment of over $4 million in legacy publishers and startup networks to help them become more financially sustainable and better serve communities of color. Jim Brady shares more in this article.
When we talk about “news deserts,” our thoughts go to large rural areas that lack — or may soon lack — a reliable source of local news. It’s a real problem. But what gets lost in that discussion is the threat of urban micro-deserts: neighborhoods inside cities that increasingly lack these same reliable news sources.
These neighborhoods, many home to underrepresented communities, don’t get much coverage from metro dailies or local TV, except too often when it comes to crime. And the Black-owned newspapers that serve many of these communities have typically been around for generations, but were slow to start their digital transformations.
