A Field-Level View of Local Journalism Infrastructure

Editor’s Note: Today, Media Impact Funders published “Rebuilding Local Journalism at Scale: A Field-Level Analysis of Infrastructure Needs,” a new report by Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro examining structural constraints facing local journalism. The analysis draws on nearly 560 applications submitted to Press Forward’s nationwide infrastructure open call. In the reflection below, Press Forward Executive Director Dale Anglin describes how the open call was designed and why the resulting dataset offers a rare field-wide snapshot of the barriers facing local news.

In 2024, Press Forward issued a nationwide Open Call focused on local news infrastructure. We asked a simple but urgent question: What would make it easier to launch and sustain local newsrooms in communities across the country? Working with our staff and management team and drawing on input from newsroom leaders and journalism support organizations, we designed an initiative aimed squarely at the systems that underpin local news.

We asked applicants to address four persistent pain points affecting nearly every newsroom: revenue generation, internal operations, human resources and audience growth. The response was extraordinary. We received 559 letters of interest from organizations across the country. Ultimately, 22 organizations were selected to share $22 million in funding. 

The analysis is particularly important for Press Forward, as we host open calls not only to support local news financially, but also to help our funder network better understand the challenges facing local journalism. These insights help our local chapters and funders new to this work, as well as experienced funders looking to collaborate more effectively to solve shared problems.

One of Press Forward’s defining strengths is that we operate as a coalition, committed to both making grants and learning together. As part of our Open Call process, applicants were invited to opt in to data-sharing agreements that allow their materials to be shared with funders in our network. This transparency enables deeper understanding of the field’s challenges and surfaces opportunities for aligned investment.

Our coalition recognized that these hundreds of applications represented something rare: a field-wide snapshot of how local news organizations themselves define the barriers they face and the solutions they would like to pursue. Arnold Ventures commissioned an independent analysis to extract broader insights that could inform philanthropic strategy. The analysis draws only from applications that opted in and reports on aggregated trends, not individual proposals.

We are grateful to Arnold Ventures, to author Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro for her analysis, and to Media Impact Funders for publishing this report and briefing its members, helping extend the reach of these findings across the philanthropic community.

The central takeaway is both clear and challenging: The most significant threats to local journalism are not isolated newsroom-level problems. They are ecosystem-level infrastructure challenges. If we want local news to thrive for the long term, we must lower the marginal cost of producing reliable civic information through smarter, systemic investments. That means building shared infrastructure that benefits many newsrooms and addresses structural barriers; work no single funder can accomplish alone.

As a coalition, we are actively discussing and debating these findings. They have already sparked thoughtful conversation across our network. Our Infrastructure Working Group will examine the analysis closely and consider how it should inform the investments we pursue, both individually and collectively.

This report is a starting point for a fundamental conversation at a pivotal moment.  It is an invitation to examine and rethink how we build the durable infrastructure local news needs to serve communities for generations to come.