Press Forward, a nationwide movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news, awarded The Maine Monitor a $100,000, two-year grant to support its newsroom operations.
The award recognizes The Maine Monitor’s work delivering investigative and in-depth news for Maine and making it freely accessible to all.
“We are honored to be included in this first round of Press Forward grantees,” executive director Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm said. “This grant helps us deliver on our commitment to serve Maine with deeply reported news that covers topics that impact people’s lives and focus on our rural communities.”
The Monitor is among 205 small, local news outlets receiving a share of $20 million to close persistent coverage gaps. Other Maine news organizations were also awarded Press Forward grants: Penobscot Bay Press, Amjambo Africa, Midcoast Villager, and Sunlight Media.
Press Forward received grant proposals from more than 900 nonprofit and for-profit news organizations across the United States and is funding twice as many small news organizations as anticipated through its first open call. Newsrooms in all 50 states, Washington D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico received funding in this round.
The goal of the Press Forward initiative, according to its website, is to “catalyze a local news renaissance that will reshape the local news landscape and re-center local journalism as a force for community cohesion, civic participation, and government accountability.”
Press Forward is a national coalition investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms, close longstanding gaps in journalism coverage, advance public policy that expands access to local news and scale the infrastructure the sector needs to thrive.
Approximately 2,200 local newspapers have closed since 2005, resulting in 20 percent of Americans living in so-called news deserts with little to no reliable coverage of important local events, according to Press Forward, which is why it is seeking to “reverse the dramatic decline in local news that has coincided with an increasingly divided America and weakening trust in institutions.”
“We seek to fund programs and organizations that will bolster democracy at the local level, support greater diversity, lean in to digital technology, develop long-term sustainable models, and help drive demand for the high-quality local news and information necessary for every member of every community to thrive,” the Press Forward website states.
“As we celebrate 15 years of our work producing free, investigative nonpartisan news for Maine, we are excited to build on this opportunity to grow our newsroom and our activities to engage with our audience,” Schweitzer-Bluhm said.
