David Brooks joins top-notch speakers at INN at Home — our free, virtual conference June 16-17

Long-time Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, professor at Yale University and bestselling author of several books, David Brooks is more than a top-tier writer: He is an independent voice on American society. As a commentator on “PBS NewsHour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Brooks has shared his views on everything from politics to morality. Now, he is part of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute, which aims to reknit communities, and he’ll share with the INN at Home audience how local journalists can be “weavers.”

Brooks is joining a roster helmed by Julie Sandorf, president of the Charles Revson Foundation and our keynote speaker. With a lifetime of experience in founding and leading various national nonprofit organizations centered on public service, including Nextbook and the Corporation for Supportive Housing, Sandorf knows the ins and outs to creating and running a nonprofit startup that will thrive. She will kick off the conference with a bold talk titled “Sorry, We Don't Fund Journalism: The Right Way to Pitch Nonprofit News” and deliver insight on how to frame the value of reporting to secure support from sponsors in other fields.

We’ll also hear from Fraser Nelson, vice president of business innovation at the Salt Lake Tribune, on the hot-button topic of the Tribune’s conversion from a for-profit newspaper to a nonprofit organization. Having led and worked with The Community Foundation of Utah, the Sorenson Impact Center and “And Justice for All,” Nelson has decades of social innovation leadership up her sleeve. She’ll draw on her experience to explain the ins, outs, and consequences of converting from a for-profit to nonprofit news organization.

PLUS: INN at Home will feature deep-dive panels, nine members-only peer groups and a virtual cocktail hour complete with breakout rooms and musical entertainment! Registration is free and open to all while space lasts. 

INN members well-represented at 2020 Collaborative Journalism Summit

Resources we like this week, from friends of INN
 

• Do you want to play a role in fostering the future of local journalism? Apply to be a Report for America mentor!
• The Tow Center is seeking proposals for rigorous research into emerging technology and trends impacting the news industry. Submit your proposal by May 31.
• Entries for the Online News Association’s 2020 Online Journalism Awards are now open. Submit your stories by June 4.
• Apply for the 2020 National Fellowship from the Center for Health Journalism by May 26.
• Election SOS from Hearken offers free training for journalists covering the 2020 US elections, connecting them to best practices, resources and support around election coverage. Apply by May 26.
• The Logan Nonfiction Program is currently accepting applications from writers, documentary filmmakers, podcasters, photojournalists and multimedia creators currently at work on a longform project for its Fall 2020 class of fellows. Apply by June 1.

• This site, created by data journalist MaryJo Webster, contains materials that she uses to teach basic data journalism concepts to reporters, and occasionally editors.

• The coronavirus pandemic has affected everyone — but not equally. Black, Latino and Native American communities, in particular, have suffered higher rates of infection and deaths, laying bare deep inequities in the American health care system and the social factors underlying health. This webinar on May 20 hosted by Center for Health Journalism will seek a deeper understanding on why minority and low-income communities are facing worse outcomes from COVID-19, and explore data tips and strategies for telling stories that capture the pandemic’s devastating toll and persistent threat to America’s most vulnerable residents. Register.
• The Summer 2020 Full Spectrum Storytelling Intensive is an audio-first, remote intensive designed by AIR in partnership with UnionDocs that exposes producers to a broad range of creative approaches to storytelling and provides an expanded set of technical skills. The session cost is $400 and the training takes place from June 11-14.

• A Q&A with Flint Beat Founder, Publisher and Reporter Jiquanda Johnson about covering gun violence in her hometown, as featured in Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog newsletter.
• Columbia Journalism Review spoke with both Robert Faturechi, one of the ProPublica reporters who broke the story about Senator Burr, and Lachlan Markay, one of the Daily Beast reporters who broke the Loeffler story, about how to report big stories from the kitchen table.
• Set up a pipeline of coronavirus story ideas with the help of BuzzFeed investigative reporter Jason Leopold and MuckRock founder Michael Morisy.
• A journalist’s guide to using Zoom for community engagement.

In Case You Missed It

• More than 55% of the daily newspaper circulation in America could be in newspapers owned by financial institutions by the end of the year. It’s time to give tax incentives to hedge funds to sell newspapers and encourage the growth of nonprofit news.
  Poynter
• A nonprofit organization run by President Trump’s nominee to lead a federal media agency is under investigation by the District of Columbia’s attorney general for improperly using organization funding.
  The Washington Post
• The pandemic forced many for-profit outlets to abandon New York and Washington DC — but nonprofit news outlets have long been working with distributed workforces outside of coastal bubbles to elevate a diversity of voices.
  CNN
• The Splice Lights On survey shows that over 40% of media orgs expect to start cutting jobs in the next 12 months.
  Splice
• As COVID-19 has brought newsrooms worldwide to their knees, one French Canadian outlet is flourishing less than a year after going bankrupt after converting to the largest newsroom co-op in the country. 
  International Journalists’ Network

From INN Members

Membership News

Celebrating member achievements — Congratulations

• ProPublica Illinois
• Better Government Association
• South Side Weekly
• City Bureau
• Chalkbeat Chicago
• Block Club Chicago

Stories that change lives: Impact from member reporting

• After a reporter from The Marshall Project published a story detailing how bad the food in prison is, even more so since the pandemic, prisoners started receiving real food after only five days. 
• Block Club Chicago was the first to report the implosion of a coal plant in the middle of a respiratory pandemic in a largely Latino, immigrant and working-class neighborhood grappled with a high number of coronavirus cases. It was also the first outlet to notify the neighborhood that the demo work was happening. Within hours, activists were protesting at the Little Village site and at Mayor Lightfoot’s house and, soon after, the mayor announced the work would be stopped.  
• Scalawag reporter Antoinette Kerr investigated three mysterious deaths of indigenous women in Robeson County, North Carolina, that law enforcement officials have refused to classify as murders, even though all signs point to foul play. After the story was published, WUNC’s The State of Things featured Kerr and tribal members from Robeson County engaged in a discussion about what state leaders must do to stop violence against Indigenous women. And NC Policy Watch took notice too. 

INN Events

• May 19: Philanthropy Office Hours
• May 21: Philanthropy Office Hours
• May 22: INN Labs Office Hours

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