Press Forward Grant Bridge, Obligation To The Future

“Each newsroom plays a vital public service role in its community – providing trustworthy local news and infor-mation in places where no other sources may exist.”
Dale R. Anglin
Director, Press Forward

Last week, Press Forward announced it had awarded $20 million in grants to 205 small community news organizations around the United States. Most were awarded $100,000 grants to be paid out in two installments over the next two years.
The Swift County Monitor-News in Benson was one of two Minnesota newspapers to be awarded a Press Forward grant. The funds will strengthen our ability to report in Swift County but also benefit the communities served by the Grant County Herald and The Stevens County Times.
“Press Forward is a nationwide movement to strengthen our democracy by revitalizing local news and information,” it says.
It is committed to four funding priorities:
- strengthening local newsrooms,
- advancing public policy that expands access to local news,
- scaling the infrastructure the sector needs to thrive,
- and closing local coverage gaps so that all communities are part of the conversations about the issues that most affect their lives.
Press Forward’s growing coalition of more than 60 funders is committed to investing more than $500 million to strengthen small, local newsrooms.
News sources in every state in the U.S., along with Puerto Rico, and Guam, were included among the 205 awarded grants. Forty percent were led by Black, Indigenous, or other leaders of color, with about 25% receiving grants in rural are-as.
There is no more pressing need for America’s representa-tive democracy than addressing the loss of reporting on our civic infrastructure—from city councils, county commis-sions, and school boards to the state Legislature and those who represent us in St. Paul to raising awareness of the ac-tions of those representing us in Washington, D.C.
These are the stories that are disappearing with the loss of community newspapers. They are the stories that inform citi-zens about the quality of their elected leaders and appointed administrators.
Their actions have a deep impact on our quality of life, how much we pay in taxes, our public safety, the quality of the water we drink, and the recreational opportunities we have. Whether we have adequate housing, child care facilities, services for senior citizens, and readily available health care services are made in their meetings.
Despite the necessity and value of these stories they are disappearing with the loss of community news. Nearly 3,000 newspapers have closed since the early 2000s and two are now lost each week.
In Minnesota, the change can be illustrated in two num-bers: 26% and 70%,” a report on “The Disappearing Rural Newspaper” from the Center for Rural Policy & Development in 2023 said.
“According to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, between 2000 and 2021, the number of newspaper establishments (print-first, not online news outlets) in the state fell from 344 to 254, a 26% drop,” the CRPD study found. “About 60% of the lost newspapers were in the area outside the Twin Cities.”
But the loss of community news is even more starkly illus-trated in the following figures: “Employee numbers, howev-er, fell from 9,499 to 2,844, a 70% drop,” the study found.
For years, it has been imperative action be taken to ensure newspapers don’t just survive but thrive. But despite all bills introduced in Congress to provide help over the past decade, none has passed.
State legislatures around the country are stepping up to help with some progress being made. But what they offer, so far, is limited and not nearly enough. Our Minnesota News-paper Association will approach the 2025 Legislature with proposed legislation to help newspapers.
Public support for community news is strong in America, but getting our elected leaders to cooperate and provide pub-lic support - citizen support - for newspapers has been a frus-trating challenge.
Now, America has a champion for community news that is stepping up to meet our needs – the country’s philanthro-pies.
“It is time for philanthropy to move at the speed of news,” Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, president and CEO of Knight Foundation, said of her foundation’s financial backing of Press Forward.
“At Knight, we are focused on addressing urgent issues fac-ing our country: the crisis in local news, the loss of trust and cohesion in society, and ever-increasing disparity and divi-sion,” she said.
“These problems demand action, but philanthropic organ-izations are often unable to react with that necessary speed. I want Knight to be nimble and responsive, and — together with my colleagues — we’re working to boost our organiza-tional agility,” Wadsworth said.
Press Forward is providing much aid to help rural com-munity newspapers survive, but much more will be needed to ensure future sustainability. Grant funding runs out. Then, who steps up to finance the news required to inform citizens with the civic knowledge they need to hold their leaders ac-countable?
With Press Forward’s generous grant, we will be exploring ways in which we can innovate to create a sustainable busi-ness model for community newspapers. We will also strive to improve the quality of what we bring the residents of the western Minnesota communities and counties we serve.
While we hope to find a sustainable business model for newspapers, we understand our future is tied irrevocably to our print product. In America, 76% of the towns have a population under 5,000. We don’t have the main street or the population to support us in a digital world. These newspapers earn 0% to 5% of their income digitally.
A free and financially secure press is a public good, like education, and should receive citizen support. We are the bedrock of the civic infrastructure upon which a representa-tive democracy is built. That infrastructure base, once built with granite, is now shifting sand, causing the collapse of newsrooms and loss of civic knowledge around America.
Press Forward’s grant is a bridge to a more sustainable fi-nancing for newspapers and an obligation on our part to be thoughtful in how we spend it.