An update on Info Districts
An update on Info Districts
Simon Galperin · October 14, 2019
(Photo by Tom Rumble.)
Three years ago we came up with the idea for info districts, democratically-established special taxing districts that fund local news and information to promote civic engagement.
And today, there’s even more evidence that local news needs reinvention. There’s also a growing consensus. So much so that newspaper editors are pumping their fists calling for a revolution in public funding of local news:
In the video above, Chuck Plunkett, journalist and former Denver Post editorial page editor, tells his audience:
“[The press] no longer functions like it used to. You know intimately what the poisoned national discourse feels like. What a mockery of reasoned debate it has become. This is what happens when local newsrooms shutter and communities across the country go unwatched and unseen. Until we recognize that the decline of local news has serious consequence for our society, this situation will not improve.
If newsrooms are vital to our democracy, then we should fund them like they’re vital to our democracy. We cannot stand by and let our watchdogs be put down. We cannot let more communities vanish into darkness.
“It is time to debate a public funding option before the Fourth Estate disappears and — with it — our grand democractic experiment. We need much more than a rebellion. It is time for a revolution!”
We couldn’t agree more with Plunkett. And that’s why the Colorado Media Project invited us to join Plunkett and other leaders to advise their research on ways the public can support local news in Colorado.
Their report, “Local News is a Public Good: Public Pathways for Supporting Coloradans’ Civic News and Information Needs in the 21st Century,” was published this week.
Our solution to the local news crisis — info districts — leads the report’s recommendations.
And it’s an info district campaign that catalyzed this research.
After reading about info districts in the Columbia Journalism Review, a Longmont, Colorado resident named Scott Converse was inspired to launch an info district campaign. Using the state’s library district statute, a group of local stakeholders introduced the idea of investing in their local library and adding a community news component to its operations.
Longmont’s city council launched a feasibility study to explore the question. And so did the Colorado Media Project.
It’s clear that our work has reached a tipping point.
Earlier this year, we published a 40-page white paper, “How to Launch an Info District,” with support from the Reynolds Journalism Institute. We have completed a legal analysis of New Jersey’s special district laws, built a network that stretches from Oregon to Brazil, and are frequently cited as one of the leading solutions to the local news crisis in the US.
There is momentum here. So we’re going to build on it.
In the next year, we’ll launch an info district campaign in New Jersey and seed campaigns in other states by partnering with local stakeholders. We’re actively seeking financial and coordinating support for the project.
And to succeed, we’ll need an ecosystem that enables info districts. So we’re also launching a collaborative research project identifying pathways to public governance in journalism, media, and technology organizations. It’s called “Journalism’s Just Transition” and you can see the outline here.
2020 can be the year we begin the reinvention of public media. Want to help? Reach out: connect@infodistricts.org.