Colorado Media Project: A collective effort to strengthen Colorado’s local news ecosystem
Colorado Media Project (CMP) seeks to meet the information needs of Coloradans by working to strengthen Colorado’s diverse local news ecosystem, as the project's website explains. CMP is a grant-funded organization orchestrated by the University of Denver and the Gates Family Foundation, a local Colorado foundation, among others, including Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, as Nieman Lab reports.
According to Nieman, here are some of the projects CMP is working on:
- A September hackathon called Migrahack tackling immigration coverage with journalists, programmers, and community members;
- Research into the viability of public information districts and the arts and culture journalism landscape; and
- Trying to research and test solutions in Colorado’s context to strengthen local journalism as a community effort.
“This is coming at time where we can really make a difference with this next level of community involvement, which we just haven’t needed in the past where traditional business models were working. But we have to make sure we grab this opportunity and do something with it,” said Nancy Watzman, leader of CMP's team, to Nieman.
Bonfils-Stanton Foundation is among the entities that have given the CMP nearly $2 million. “It seemed to us that we should not be out there trying to ‘solve’ the cultural journalism challenge in a vacuum,” said Gary Steuer, president and CEO of Bonfils-Stanton Foundation. “That challenge is part of a larger challenge with local news, and I was thrilled to have our work plugged into something larger,” he told Nieman.
Image: Colorado Media Project Facebook