NLP Joins Call to Support Local News 

Today, the News Literacy Project (NLP) joined more than 3,000 diverse, locally owned, nonprofit and community-based newsrooms calling on congressional leaders to provide support for America’s community newsrooms in the infrastructure bill. Led by the Rebuild Local News coalition, the group sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stating, “Local news is a pillar of democracy’s infrastructure – and it is crumbling.”

The letter noted that “news deserts and ‘ghost newspapers’ – newsrooms so desolate that they don’t truly cover the town – abound across the country, especially in rural areas and communities of color. The vacuums are being filled by social media, partisan hyperbole, and harmful disinformation.”

NLP founder and CEO Alan Miller explained that NLP joined in signing because “getting people to be more informed and engaged in their communities is at the heart of our mission and that only works if there are viable local news organizations that provide the public with fact-based, standards-based news and information.”

NLP joins 20 other signatories, including the American Journalism Project; the Association of Alternative Newsmedia; the Institute for Nonprofit News; the National Association of Hispanic Publications; the National Federation of Community Broadcasters; the National Newspaper Association; PEN America; Report for America / The GroundTruth Project; the Solutions Journalism Network, and others.

Read the full letter here.