Local Stories With National Impact Go Unseen
The numbers don’t lie (as Jay Z would tell us).
Nearly 200 counties in the United States do not have a local news publication — this means nearly 3 million people nationwide are likely to be unaware of what’s happening in their own communities. Publications, journalists, and credible news accessibility are all destabilized when access to local stories is limited according to Rachel Hislop of Okayplayer.
As grassroots organizations, politicians, and faith leaders work tirelessly on issues dealing with race, genders, and class, it becomes exceedingly important that these stories are told through a variety of lens’. Showcasing just one perspective diminishes the accuracy of the story. For example, those in Black and brown communities likely have a very different perspective when they think about the institution of policing versus when those in the majority race reflect on the institution.
If we are truly going to shift the narrative and change the way stories are told, we have to change the storytellers with a seat at the table. Unfortunately, the pandemic shuttered a lot of the newsrooms in small towns across the country. Many of these newsrooms lacked diversity, to begin with. The pandemic simply multiplied and highlighted this problem.
As a PR Boutique, we encounter several stories that speak to larger crises going on in America, but there is a multitude of reasons that these stories do not see the light of day.
- Limited staff and editors/producers are making quick decisions on what the news of the day should be.
- The journalist on staff may not find the story of interest. Especially if they are not empathetic to the impact that the story may have on a culture other than their own.
- An executive at the media outlet may decide that a particular story may not generate the ad revenue that his/her outlet is working towards.
This is the problem Okayplayer focused on as a recipient of the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge. They decided to target the real issues affecting our newsroom including a focus on the industry-wide need for revenue model innovation that amplifies new voices and local stories. From that, The Byline Project was born.
The Byline Project is a completely free digital tool that empowers small and mid-size publishers and local storytellers to help bring local reporting back to their communities while connecting the work of storytellers to financial support from a broader digital audience.
We truly value our local storytellers and look forward to the many ways that The Byline Project will improve the avenues for which stories are told and the ability for compensation for these individuals.
This mission also mirrors the work we do with our organization, The Front Line. In 2017 we noticed a void in the amplification of stories getting told from those doing the work on the ground in areas such as voting rights, women’s rights, healthcare, and criminal justice reform. We can’t allow this to be the norm!
Later this year, The Front Line will come back online in the form of a podcast, blog, and thought leadership that will lift the voices of our many unsung heroes working on the ground to make our communities better. We hope that as we collaborate on amplifying these types of stories, they are mixed into the mainstream. Knowing that so many of our small counties do not have a local news outlet, we must make every effort to push news and information to these communities in the ways that they can receive it. If that means utilizing everything from social media to the church newsletter, communicators will have to figure out how to connect via nontraditional means.