"A Top Pipeline For Local Journalists Is Saying No To Hedge Funds"

"Report for America subsidizes salaries for journalists-in-training at hundreds of newspapers. Its leaders no longer want to help media investors they say are undermining the news business."

"Report for America launched in 2017 with an unique mission: to train the next generation of journalists by sending them to work at newsrooms that are struggling to cover their local communities amid broader challenges to the news industry.

But now it has decided to stop working with one growing category of newspapers — those that are backed by hedge funds or private-equity firms.

Those kind of profit-oriented financial institutions are not part of the answer to the conundrum of how to sustain the news business, said Kim Kleman, Report for America’s executive director.

“Hedge fund ownership of local newsrooms is not a business model we support,” she told The Washington Post. “America has seen the results: an axing of staff and also local news coverage.”"

Jeremy Barr reports for the Washington Post March 5, 2024.

 

Source: Washington Post, 03/06/2024