What is the Rural Newswire and What Are Its Aims?
Grist and the Center for Rural Strategies have announced the launch of the Rural Newswire, a website created to support the rural news ecosystem in the United States. The website is aimed at helping newsrooms that serve rural communities by providing a platform to find and share stories that can be republished for free. Editors can use the Rural Newswire to source stories to syndicate content, and they can also upload links to their own coverage. The key part of the initiative is the $100,000 in grants the Center and Grist are giving to both newsrooms and freelancers who report on rural America.
The decline in rural reporting across the U.S. prompted the creation of the Rural Newswire. Local journalism in the U.S. is at a crisis point, with two local newspapers per week closing, leaving many Americans in news deserts. In addition, there are urgent crises, including climate change and threats to democracy, that make the need for communities to receive information all the more critical. “As we saw rural reporting across the U.S. declining because of media consolidation, we organized a team of journalists and started the Daily Yonder, an online newsroom to fill the gaps,” said Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies. “But there is still plenty to do. We are committed to the sustained work of building new civic infrastructure and lasting relationships with rural publishers and audiences.”
“Climate change is an all-hands-on-deck issue, and responding to it will also involve a pretty massive cultural shift — one that can’t be achieved by only serving climate news to audiences on the coasts,“ said Grist CEO Nikhil Swaminathan. “Rural communities are experiencing the impacts of climate change through increased flooding, hotter temperatures, and more, but many times they’re also people who can be on the front line of the changes we need to take hold, from how rural electric cooperatives generate electricity for their members to regenerative agriculture practices that can cut down on carbon. We’re proud to partner with our friends at the Center for Rural Strategies to strengthen the information, including climate information, reaching the U.S.’s rural communities.”
The Center for Rural Strategies and Grist will work with the Institute for Nonprofit News, home of the Rural News Network, which is a consortium of over 60 nonprofit and nonpartisan news organizations, reflecting the broadest news alliance reporting on rural America. The three organizations will work together to feed content to Rural Newswire and coordinate efforts to support rural media.
Jonathan Kealing, INN’s chief network officer, said that Rural Newswire is “yet another valuable investment in newsrooms serving remote populations across the country, and an awesome resource for editors to share quality coverage with their audiences.”
The creation of the Rural Newswire is an important step in addressing the challenges facing rural newsrooms across the U.S.. By providing a platform to share and republish stories, the website will enable newsrooms to access a wider range of news stories, including climate-related news. The Rural Newswire grants will also provide financial support to freelancers and newsrooms reporting on rural America, allowing them to cover important stories that would otherwise go untold. Hopefully, these initiatives will start to see the reversal of the current media crisis in rural America.
