The Santa Barbara News-Press has been awarded a $25,000 community-listening grant from two organizations devoted to supporting quality journalism.
The News-Press joins 12 other news providers around the country that will receive grants ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 to launch projects to better listen to the needs of the communities they serve. The grants are being provided by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a Philadelphia-based center that provides advice and training for local news outlets, and the Google News Initiative, which provides backing to news providers.
“This grant acknowledges that audience development now requires proactive, often offline engagement — showing up in person, investing in relationships, and building trust one conversation at a time,” Tristan Loper, Lenfest’s head of national programs, said in a statement. “With this investment from the Google News Initiative, grantees will test and demonstrate new ways of connecting with the people they serve.”
The News-Press’ grant will be used to host listening sessions and distribute Spanish-language surveys across Santa Barbara County.
The plan is to focus on majority Latino areas that may not have received the news coverage and attention afforded other parts of the county. Seeking out areas underserved by trusted news is a mission of NEWSWELL, which acquired the News-Press’ assets earlier this year. NEWSWELL is an arm of Arizona State University Media Enterprise, a nonprofit that aims to reimagine the future of news.
The results of the new listening sessions in Latino communities will be used to help formulate the News-Press’ editorial strategy, language accessibility and other key content decisions. They follow a previous round of more generalized listening sessions undertaken in late April and early May.
Those sessions gathered the thoughts of Santa Barbara community leaders and residents about the news needs that can be fulfilled by the News-Press, the nearly century-old news operation relaunched two years after ceasing operations after a bankruptcy filing.
Participants in that first round of sessions indicated they want in-depth, explanatory and investigative news. They saw a clear path for the News-Press to provide coverage that can’t be found elsewhere in Santa Barbara County.
Among those joining in the earlier sessions was Patricia Solorio, associate director at the Fund for Santa Barbara. Solorio attended a listening session in Santa Maria, where she is a lifelong resident. She emphasized the need to listen to the Spanish-speaking community in gathering news as well as providing accurate and factual information to all Santa Barbara County residents.
In Santa Maria, it couldn’t be more important: Nearly 80% of the city’s population is Latino, and two-thirds speak a language other than English at home, according to U.S. Census data.
