A host of Los Angeles news organizations have raised $15 million to kick off a nonprofit collaboration whose aim is to boost community-focused journalism in local newsrooms.
The LA Local News Initiative, in collaboration with the nonprofit American Journalism Project, was announced Tuesday. Its board, which is seeking to hire a CEO and executive editor, includes former Los Angeles Times editor Kevin Merida and former La Opinión editor, publisher and chief executive Monica Lozano.
“Local news in LA is in jeopardy,” said Giselle Fernandez, a Spectrum News anchor and board member, said in a Tuesday statement. “We’ve lost our common story—we no longer have a shared set of facts.”
Local news partners of the initiative include CalMatters, Latino Media Collaborative, and USC Annenberg. Goals include helping facilitate content sharing, special projects collaborations and resource sharing. The effort will also include a “region-wide accountability reporting team” that will report on local governments.
The LA Local News Initiative is just one of several efforts to stem the bloodletting in California’s newsrooms. The California Journalism Preservation Act, a bill that would require tech companies to pay news outlets for linking to their work, has stalled in the state legislature as lawmakers have begun to negotiate with Google, Meta and Amazon.
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