An IPI Global Network Report on how local news media are rethinking everything in the digital age, and what they need now to sustain the vital journalism serving local communities around the world.

REPORT AVAILABLE HERE (PDF file)

 

 

The 15 Recommendations… 

  1. Support local media leaders and entrepreneurs to know and understand their audience and design news media products that serve their needs, and to find ways to involve them in their journalism.
  2. Help local news media find ways to build trust and support in their communities, including greater transparency, explaining their mission and values; their challenges and opportunities; and how they operate and why the community should support them.
  3. Source or create an executive facilitator/solutions lab to bring together local news media leaders in a focussed programme to solve particular (perhaps common) problems, or to work on a challenge, including audience engagement and revenue strategies available to all local media leaders in need, but with a focus Africa and Asia.
  4. Work with advanced digital transition organizations and programs globally (particularly in the U.S.) to explore collaborations that sees their programs adapted, extended or replicated to where they are needed.
  5. Create opportunities for local news media, particularly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, to develop the skills and knowledge needed to build sustainable news media, including bootcamps, virtual training, summits and labs with a focus on audience engagement, product design and revenue strategies.
  6. Create a fund to support local media with external funding for local news media with a focus on Africa and Asia:
    1. To fund experimentation and innovation;
    2. To support training and networking opportunities;
    3. To support the basic news organizations which are unable to be funded (in full or part) by their communities; and
    4. To address a specific challenge and/or to provide seed money for new products or other initiatives.
  7. Build understanding within philanthropic networks that not all communities can sustain the local news media they need. Some will need long-term commitment to be sustainable.
  8. Create networking and sharing opportunities across continents, including frameworks that help local media tell their story to others and collect best practices in an accessible format. Encourage confidence to share lessons from success and failure.
  9. Link fact-checking experts with local media to build the essential capacity to fight misinformation and disinformation.
  10. IPI is ideally placed to act as a connector between local media and points of advice, funding and support, and advise and help global donors and support organizations to understand local media needs, and act on these.
  11. Build a local news media focus in the IPI virtual visits program for a deep dive into the experiences and lessons that can be shared globally.
  12. Facilitate transnational mentor networks for media startups by linking across nations and drawing on the expertise of senior IPI members.
  13. Identify and build a global network of local news media supporters and publishers, editors and supporters. Build a regular summit into the IPI World Congress annually.
  14. Evangelize for local news media by leveraging networks and reporting frameworks that showcase local media, encouraging them to tell their story to broader audiences, and to act as champions for one other and for the sector at large.
  15. Build an IPI local news award program that recognizes the importance of the sector and promotes great journalism.
REPORT AVAILABLE HERE (PDF file)

 

Project supported by:

Read  more about the project here.