In the Time of COVID-19, Supporting Local News Is More Important Than Ever – 5280

In the Time of COVID-19, Supporting Local News Is More Important Than Ever  5280

Many Coloradans are rallying to support local restaurants, retail outlets, and service workers—let’s add local newsrooms to the list. The image is familiar, even mundane, to most of us now: a dozen or more faces peer out against various backgrounds—some real, some green-screened—talking and planning across many miles. Together, apart. But it was an unprecedented group that first gathered on April 1—in more ways than one. First, the faces were of journalists from newsrooms from across Colorado, who in previous years have been more accustomed to competition than collaboration. Second, the group was finding unity in a common purpose—how working together could help each of them reach more Coloradans with accurate, timely, potentially lifesaving updates and rigorous reporting in the unprecedented time of COVID-19.

Since that first Zoom call less than a month ago, nearly 100 journalists representing over 40 newsrooms across the state have joined the Colorado News Collaborative, which now includes the state’s largest and smallest newspapers, radio and television stations, digital news outlets, and professional journalism associations. A major factor prompting each to join the COLab, as it’s called, is a common need to figure out how to do more with less. Why? While online news traffic is surging due to reader demand for trustworthy local news and information, Colorado’s newsrooms themselves are running on fumes. Some