Luanne Rife is the executive director and co-founder of Cardinal News. This is the first in what will be a regular series of columns about Cardinal and local news in Virginia. You can send questions to luanne@cardinalnews.org.
Some of the conversations I’ve had lately about news avoidance remind me of another difficult time.
In the days following the 1999 Columbine massacre, I was asked to moderate a panel that included parents, students, teachers and a psychologist talking about growing violence among young people.
Panelist after panelist blamed “the media.” As a member of “the media,” I was starting to feel uncomfortable. Is this a personal attack? Then I thought, wait, maybe they mean something else. I asked them to define “the media.”
To a person, they replied that they were talking about violent video games, movies and TV shows that were desensitizing kids who didn’t understand dead is dead. Then why not say that?
I’m feeling the same blanket condemnation lately with so many people — regardless of political ideology — saying they are “stepping away from news” because they are just too exhausted by the vitriol.
I get it. With so many screeching alerts, it is exhausting to sort through all the noise on the national stage to know what is and isn’t important.
For me, part of the answer is to refocus on what I have always thought is most important and to pay attention to what affects our local communities, people’s lives and their livelihoods. An example is Emily Schabacker and Elizabeth Beyer’s story Monday on what might happen to hundreds of thousands of Virginians if Medicaid expansion is rolled back. As is Tad Dickens’ story Monday about the freeze on National Institutes of Health funding and the uncertainty of its impact on the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC.
I was reminded recently of the importance of telling local stories when talking with Karen Rundlet, executive director and CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Rundlet shared a pandemic anecdote about how national journalists told the story that no one in her hometown of Miami was taking masking and distancing seriously. This spurred waves of restriction-spurning tourists who made it appear that it was true that no one was taking COVID seriously. But the residents were, she said. They just didn’t get to tell their story.
Telling the communities’ stories is exactly why we started Cardinal News. Everything we do supports our mission to use the best of journalism to give voice to people who would otherwise be sidelined in Virginia’s important conversations simply because of where they live.
If we don’t tell these stories, we will either be ignored or will be forced to defend against inaccurate stereotypes.
On Feb. 4, Rundlet will Zoom with Cardinal News members — readers who donate monthly or yearly to support our journalism. She’ll talk about the impact of local news and why and how the rising number of independent nonprofit news organizations are strengthening their communities and democracy through storytelling.
The Institute for Nonprofit News was founded about 15 years ago by a couple dozen organizations that specialized in investigative reporting. It has grown to more than 475 members, with slightly less than half being local news organizations. Another 26% focus on state and regional coverage, and the balance on national and global issues. (Cardinal is a hybrid in that we do both local and state coverage.)
Rundlet is passionate about local journalism and the impact that it makes in keeping people informed with independently gathered information.
INN does not accept everyone who applies for membership. It has strict codes around transparency so that readers can easily know who is funding the news and can readily judge whether an organization is indeed independent. You can always revisit the FAQs about Cardinal and scroll through our donors.
INN provides a wealth of services to us that includes training, access to advisors, networking with our peers to learn about new ideas to reach audiences where they are, and benchmarking so that we can get a sense as to how we’re performing with revenue streams, expenses and staffing levels, and if we’re competitive with our wages and benefits.
We are not alone in being troubled about news avoidance. Though we are beginning to see a rebound in January, our web traffic trailed prior months for much of November and December, and the pace slackened for new daily subscribers. Our peers report the same.
We will talk with Rundlet about what all of this means for building and sustaining robust local news. If you’d like to join us or want to know more about our membership benefits, which include exclusive Zooms, reach out to members@cardinalnews.org.
