It’s April, so maybe it’s time for some inside baseball.
On Wednesday, I invited Kaarin Austin, the brand new director of Press Ahead’s Washington chapter, to The Seattle Occasions for a tour and dialog about what her group might do to help native journalism within the state.
Austin shared the group’s imaginative and prescient and what it’s aiming to do that 12 months. She generously fielded my opinionated questions and commiserated over the state of native information, particularly in Tacoma, the place she lives.
Press Ahead is a coalition of nationwide philanthropies that in 2023 pledged $500 million over 5 years to “reverse the dramatic decline in native information that has coincided with an more and more divided America and weakening belief in establishments.”
It’s additionally constructing a community of state associates to lift funding regionally and supply grants.
Washington’s chapter is predicated on the Whatcom Community Foundation in Bellingham. It’s partnering with different regional foundations that contributed $5,000 to $30,000 apiece to launch this system. To date this “council” has raised slightly below $400,000.
“I might love to usher in one million {dollars} by the top of the 12 months and I’m hopeful that that may occur,” Austin mentioned. “We’ll see.”
Austin began in January. Beforehand she was director of philanthropy at public-radio station KNKX. Earlier than that she was director of present planning at Pacific Lutheran College.
A Spokane native, Austin grew up in a home that subscribed to The Spokesman-Overview and remembers sitting on her father’s lap as they learn the newspaper.
She nonetheless subscribes to the Spokesman, plus The Information Tribune, The New York Occasions and group publications in Tacoma. Her morning routine contains doing The New York Occasions video games whereas listening to KNKX.
These issues all appear to make her eminently certified to guide this new group.
Austin additionally appears ready to work via the initiative’s rising pains and the unlucky tensions in “save journalism” circles now that large cash’s up for grabs.
Rising pains embrace questions on whether or not the initiative spends an excessive amount of on an array of nonprofits shaped to help the trade, creating bureaucratic superstructure.
Tensions embrace competitors for donations, since many native retailers are doing their own fundraising and there are longstanding, nonprofit news-support organizations.
“There needs to be this rising-tide-lifts-all-ships mentality,” Austin mentioned.
There’s additionally strain from ideological factions desirous to steer grants away from for-profit information retailers. That’s counterproductive since for-profit retailers produce practically all of the trusted, native journalism that Press Ahead is attempting to revitalize — particularly in rural and suburban areas most in danger.
Some are additionally pushing Press Ahead to fund quasi-journalistic nonprofits, together with progressive-leaning organizations that don’t have conventional journalism requirements. They’ve tried to reframe the difficulty as certainly one of “civic information and data” to broaden eligibility.
I’m a bit involved that Washington’s chapter goes there, partially as a result of it’s calling itself the “Washington News Fund” — dropping “Press” from its title.
Austin mentioned the title was chosen as a result of Press Ahead began as a five-year mission and “we need to be round longer than that.”
“The council in Washington determined that they wished to associate with journalists however themselves be a group activator and fund, basically, so that they wished to establish as a fund,” she mentioned.
No matter it’s known as, I’m grateful for the help of those foundations and people who fund them. It reveals individuals perceive the significance of native journalism and the pressing must maintain it.
Austin famous that native information is a brand new focus for philanthropy.
“You might have your large foundations which were doing this for an extended, lengthy, very long time — the Knight Basis and MacArthur Basis — however native information and data being seen as a precedence for philanthropy as an entire is absolutely new,” she mentioned. “And so the philanthropists try to determine the way to finest present up on this house.”
I hope they find out how a lot the native journalism disaster is an financial problem for the roughly 5,400 newspapers offering the overwhelming majority of native information protection, on-line and in print.
When their enterprise mannequin was disrupted, they merged, closed or shrank, creating news deserts in more than half of U.S. counties. Lots of the survivors have stabilized however with smaller newsrooms and lowered distribution.
Get their flywheel going once more and the issue is basically solved. Assist them grow to be sustainable, serve extra individuals and do extra to tell communities. That requires extra journalists and funding in operations. Grants are making this occur in locations.
Grants are additionally wanted to help nonprofit retailers, together with startups and conventional retailers that convert to nonprofit standing. There are maybe 500 to 700 of those, some doing top-tier journalism. Comparatively few are replanting information deserts, although. Most are in cities with different information sources.
Then there are greater than 500 nonprofits searching for grants to help the trade, together with 120 nationwide organizations that sought Press Forward grants in 2024.
One such nonprofit obtained the Washington fund’s first giant grant earlier than Austin was employed.
It gave $75,000 to the Washington State Information Alliance, a brand new group led by Anika Anand, Sarah Gustavus Lim and Linda Shaw. They began a local-news publication in 2025 and had ties to the Press Ahead nationwide group.
They’re utilizing the cash to broaden their “Contemporary Floor” publication, create a steering committee and host a convention in Could. The alliance intends to “coordinate individuals, funding, and assets in help of a robust, equitable native information ecosystem in Washington.”
“That is our boots on the bottom method, the subject material consultants,” Austin mentioned. “We’re asking the Washington State Information Alliance and their steering committee … to be these eyes and ears on the bottom for us.”
The fund, in the meantime, plans to provide round $100,000 in grants by Could.
“We’re calling these our founding grants,” Austin mentioned. “I might name them proof of idea, or exhibiting what our concept of change is … these can be a sign to each newsrooms and different funders (that) that is the kind of factor we’re investing in.”
Requested what they’ll fund, Austin described the fund’s 4 “strategic priorities” that mirror Press Ahead’s. They embrace coverage work, although in a roundabout way funding political teams; sustainability, together with enterprise fashions; and organizational infrastructure, similar to back-office methods.
The fourth precedence is fairness, “ensuring that every one Washingtonians have entry to native information and data that’s related to them and possibly comes within the language that they want it in.”
That’s all nice, so long as it leads to extra journalists in newsrooms producing trusted native information, holding officers accountable, informing the general public and strengthening communities and democracy.
