As early as 2008, we recognized the early warning signs of market failure—massive loss of advertising revenues to internet platforms, rapacious acquisition of newspaper chains financed by huge debt burdens, business models that forsook local interests to win national and international audiences, and the rise of social media as an ever dominant source of information—a confluence of events that affected all news media, with the most adverse impact on local news. Rapid declines in local newsroom staff across the country have eviscerated coverage that supplied the public with information relevant to their daily lives, held institutions of power accountable, and served as a ‘civic connector’ and basis of common knowledge.

New York City’s reign as the media capital of the world did not render it immune to the ravages of market forces. Borough beat reporting disappeared, courtrooms were left uncovered, and the eyeballs on City Hall were a shadow of their former selves. It is no coincidence that over the past decade, city government has been rife with corruption.

It would be a fool’s errand to imagine that philanthropy could fully resuscitate New York City’s news corps to its former glory. But was it too audacious a goal to imagine what it might take to ensure civic accountability and build resiliency across NYC’s community news eco-system? With our longstanding mission of investing in the future of the City of New York and advancing democratic values, Revson has invested over $17 million to strengthen local journalism by deploying a mix of strategies including:

• Increasing the number of ‘eyes on the street’ through the direct funding of journalism. Since 2010, Revson has invested $11.5 million in direct funding of local journalism, including the seeding of ProPublica’s first local news desk, which won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and led to the creation of their Local Reporting Network; the build out of WNYC’s digital news operations; and the establishment of THE CITY. We have also funded a wide range of nonprofit news outlets, including Documented, Chalkbeat, the Marshall Project, City Limits, Futuro Media, Powerline, NY Focus, Hellgate and Vital City. Our support for an investigative reporting partnership at the Newmark Journalism School, led by veteran journalist Tom Robbins, paired seasoned investigative reporters with J school students to produce coverage distributed by a broad range of mainstream press.
• Expand and strengthen financial, editorial, and legal support for local journalism. A robust and sustainable news ecosystem includes a broad spectrum of outlets, from community media, citywide investigative and beat reporting, to topic specific niche outlets and blogs. Revson has assisted diverse local news outlets through infrastructure investments that support financial sustainability, strengthen reporting capacity and quality, and create a pipeline of talented young journalists ready to meet the challenges of the day.

  In a city as diverse as New York, its 200+ community and foreign language media outlets play a critical role in the news ecosystem. Since 2012, we have supported initiatives to help strengthen the financial underpinnings and professional standards in community and nonprofit media, including the Newsmakers Series and salons which brought together journalists, community leaders, topic specific experts and elected officials to share their views and expertise on pressing issues of the day.

  Revson’s funding of an analysis on how city government allocates its advertising dollars culminated in Revson’s support for the development and execution of the Advertising Boost Initiative, the nation’s first and single largest redirection of public advertising to community media. Since 2020, ABI has allocated a total of $65 million in advertising to hundreds of community media outlets. In 2021, Revson partnered with the Newmark J School to establish the City Elections Initiative, which enabled dozens of outlets to report on citywide and local elections and raised almost $2 million in revenue from political and voter education campaigns.

  Effective journalism also requires expert legal advice, which many nonprofit newsrooms, individual journalists, and community media are hard pressed to afford. To address this need, Revson funded the expansion of the Cornell First Amendment Legal Clinic to deliver essential legal support to a wide array of outlets in NYC, including FOIL requests and lawsuits relating to noncompliance with FOIL, defamation suits, vetting of investigative reporting, and business and governance related matters. Their attorney working pro bono on behalf of New York City has saved publishers and reporters at least $2 million over three years.

  The future of local journalism in New York City also depends on training a pipeline of talented people who are representative of the city’s rich diversity. In 2018, Revson established the Lisa Goldberg/Revson Scholarship program at the Newmark J school and has funded 75 J school students of diverse backgrounds who are dedicated to public affairs journalism. Revson and the Newmark School have also partnered to establish the Data Journalism Fellows program, which provides paid internships and fellowships with local newsrooms.

• Educating future generations of news consumers and producers. The future of local journalism also depends on exposing young people to the value of a free and trustworthy press as a critical pillar of democracy. The meteoric rise of social media as a primary source of news among young people, combined with a crippling erosion of journalism as civic education in and outside of the classroom, threatens to undermine an ability to think critically, decipher fact from fiction, and develop the mental muscle necessary to be an informed and engaged citizen. As one of the earliest and largest supporters of the News Literacy Project, Revson is proud to see significant expansion of News Literacy as a pillar of civic education. More recently, we have provided formative support for the establishment of a NYC based coalition, the Youth Journalism Coalition, of nonprofits working in partnership with the Newmark J School to significantly expand the number of student news outlets and journalism programs in NYC public high schools, where almost 75% of schools do not offer such opportunities.

Read “How New York City is Saving Its Local News Outlets” by Julie Sandorf and Sarah Bartlett, NY Times, May 20, 2021

Learn more about “The Role of Philanthropy in Resuscitating Local Journalism”

Learn more about the connections between journalism and democracy

Photo credit: Edward Grattan, Newmark J-School Class of 2025