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Here’s a list of 80+ NYC local news outlets that need your support

For World Press Freedom Day, the New York Times urged readers to support local news outlets — but it was missing quite a few in its own backyard. Here’s a more complete list of New York City community news publications that need your support.

Ned Berke
4 min readMay 11, 2020
Photo by Markus Winkler from Pexels

The New York Times compiled membership lists from five press associations into a database, published on May 1, 2020 for World Press Freedom Day. The list was searchable by location, and the paper urged its national audience to support local media with subscriptions and donations.

“Local journalism is in crisis and at risk of disappearing,” the paper said. “These vital resources are critical to the safety, security and knowledge of our communities, never more so than in these difficult times.”

Local journalism helps tell the full story

Local journalism is in crisis and at risk of disappearing. These vital resources are critical to the safety, security…

www.nytimes.com

That’s true. When these publications are perhaps more necessary than ever for the health and safety of communities, they’re also facing their greatest existential crisis. The same Coronavirus pandemic that makes news publishers so critical has also gutted their business models — largely retail advertising and events. In response, many have shed staff and been forced to do more with less.

The problem, though, is that the New York Times’ database was far from comprehensive.

As Poynter noted, “The list excluded small, locally owned places that aren’t members of any of those organizations, members of the National Newspaper Association, local public radio and TV stations and college newspapers, which, in some places, are filling the gaps left by shrinking local newspapers.” (The Times later added the NNA.)

Trying to put together a comprehensive list of local news organizations across the country is no small feat. Though the Times’ list missed many publications doing good and noble work, the net effect was positive. Some publishers turned the mention into a fundraising campaign and raised thousands of dollars.

But as a New Yorker turning to that database to find local news publishers in the Times’ own backyard, the results were disappointing — and troubling.

In its initial list, there were no news organizations to support in the Bronx, nor in Queens — an unimaginable oversight, given that the latter borough is ground zero for the very health pandemic so urgently accelerating the industry’s collapse. These are also the two boroughs where people of color make up the largest percentage of the population —communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and least served by mainstream news media.

In the city’s largest borough, Brooklyn, the Times list omitted the two most-read local news publications. In Manhattan, a score of local outlets that make sense of the clamor and culture of neighborhoods larger than many of the nation’s towns just didn’t exist — if the database was taken as gospel.

That’s a problem. These publications need your support — whether it’s in the form of subscriptions or donations, or even just eyeballs. So I spent a few hours compiling my own list.

On May 9, there were 26 local news publications in New York City on the New York Times’s list, reflecting a few additions over the week. My list, below, has more than 80.

Please consider supporting them, signing up to the newsletters, or following them on social media.

I’m sure I’ve missed some. I’m happy to update it — just send me a DM on Twitter.

(H/t to the Center for Community Media at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism. My list draws heavily from their 2013 directory, which they’ve moved online with a few updates.)

Bronx

Brooklyn

Manhattan

Queens

Staten Island

Citywide

Issues, identities and interests

Ned Berke helps local, regional, niche and investigative news organizations strengthen relationships with audiences and make more money to support quality journalism.

He built the Audience Explorer dashboard, a free tool now in use in hundreds of newsrooms, and is a founding member of LION Publishers.

More than 300 small and medium publishers have received strategic assistance through his work with the Center for Cooperative Media, LION Publishers, INN and direct consulting agreements. Get in touch by e-mail, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Journalism
Local News
Philanthropy
New York City
Nyc Media

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Ned Berke

Written by Ned Berke

413 Followers

VP, Audience @ BlueLena. Past: Center for Cooperative Media, Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, BK Eagle, LifePosts, Bklyner, Sheepshead Bites.

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