Community News Fellowships: Our Process

Building on Existing Foundations

Three states have created public journalism fellowships: California, New Mexico, and Washington State. However, none of the three programs is codified in statute. They were placed within public universities and funded by line-item appropriations or budget provisos, with the program administrators left to work out the details of how the programs should operate.

To dig deeper, we analyzed the current programs of the Murrow News Fellowship at Washington State University, the California Local News Fellowship at UC Berkeley, and the New Mexico Local News Fellowships and Internships at the University of New Mexico. We also looked at Report for America, a non-profit organization that places journalist fellows in news organizations across the United States. [Disclosure: Rebuild Local News founder and president Steve Waldman is the co-founder and former president of Report for America.] We interviewed leaders of these programs, including founding and current directors, and reviewed program documents and outcome data.

Our community news fellowships model law builds on that research and would not exist but for the pioneering work of the program leaders who shared their insights about what works and what doesn’t. We take lessons from how these programs have succeeded as well as where they’ve faced challenges and threats to sustainability. We have sought to balance allowing flexibility to customize each program to a state’s unique coverage needs and news ecosystem with a structure that stabilizes funding and embeds the best practices of existing programs.

Design Principles

All Rebuild Local News model policies are designed to be nonpartisan, platform neutral, content neutral, and local. In particular, this model law is guided by the following principles:

• • Eligibility is content-neutral. This model law does not allow government officials to pick winners and losers or make subjective judgments about who is a legitimate local news outlet. However, fellowships programs may condition eligibility on coverage needs and demonstrated readiness to supervise and support an additional journalist.
  • Durable funding is worth the effort. Every program we studied has operated on year-to-year public funding mechanisms, which complicates planning when administrators are uncertain what their budget may look like in the next year. The model law establishes the program in statute with a continuing fund, so that two-year fellowships and overlapping cohorts are more reliably sustained. While this likely requires a larger upfront advocacy effort than a one-time appropriation would, we view durability and sustainability as worth the effort.
  • The model law should be adaptable. States vary enormously in their news ecosystems, graduate pipelines, cost of living, and geography. We drafted the model law with placeholders and alternative provisions, so practitioners can tailor it to local needs without rebuilding the policy from scratch.

Acknowledgments

This model law reflects the expertise and candid feedback of the people who have actually built and run these programs. We are especially grateful to Kim Kleman of Report for America, Jody Brannon of the Murrow News Fellowship at Washington State University, Gwyneth Doland of the New Mexico Local News Fellowships and Internships at the University of New Mexico, Rashad Mahmood of the New Mexico Local News Fund, and Christa Scharfenberg and Monica Campbell, the founding director and current director (respectively) of the California Local News Fellowship at UC Berkeley. Their willingness to share what worked and what didn’t made this model law substantially better. We stand on their shoulders.

We are also grateful to the members of the Rebuild Local News Steering Committee and the broader Rebuild Local News coalition who contributed their time, knowledge, and criticism throughout the drafting process. In the course of designing this model policy, we received valuable feedback from individuals including Chris Krewson and Chuck Corra with LION Publishers, Ken Doctor with Lookout Local, Benjy Hamm with the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky, Brandi Rivera with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, Matthew Mantica with the American Journalism Project, Karen Rundlet with the Institute for Nonprofit News, Lauren Selig with The NewsGuild-CWA, Harriet Jones with the Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative, Gabe Rottman with Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, former California State Senator and Rebuild Local News senior advisor Steven Glazer, and Rebuild Local News President Steve Waldman.

This model policy was principally authored by Rebuild Local News Senior Policy Manager Gene Perry, with research support from Rebuild Local News Director of Research Matt Baker.

We are fortunate to work alongside many dedicated partners to rebuild a thriving local news ecosystem for strong local communities. This model law is offered as a shared resource for anyone working toward that goal. Please share any feedback, questions, and suggestions for improvement with geneperry@rebuildlocalnews.org.