Commoner Co. Quarterly #1
Hello!
Welcome to our first note as Commoner Company. We’ll use this space to occasionally share knotty questions we’re thinking about, highlight inspiring ideas and talk about what we’re learning from work we’re putting out in the world.
But first, we want to properly introduce ourselves: In this Q&A, we share what led us to creating Commoner, some dream projects for 2025 and a few people who are inspiring us now.
Many folks have been asking us what exactly is Commoner. The short answer is it’s a vehicle for us to take on questions and challenges that most excite us—in collaboration with leaders from across the local news field and beyond. Here are some of those:
How do we move past outdated "Newspapers/Radio/TV" labels for local news? We need a taxonomy that actually focuses on community information needs! After 15+ years of upheaval and evolution in local news, a whole new landscape has emerged that blends the best structural stuff from before with where we need to go next. Our recent Democracy Fund-commissioned report on journalism support organizations (JSOs) lays out a new way to classify these organizations based on community needs. Now we're teaming up with newsmakers, support groups and funders to re-envision how we identify different types of newsroom and content creators during this make-or-break transition period.
How can our big survey of journalism support groups help local news get more organized and more powerful? Our "Yellow Pages" project is building a massive database of local news support organizations as a one-stop shop for newsmakers, other support groups, and funders. It's a practical outcome from our JSO report — we're creating a canonical survey and help desk based on info from 250+ organizations that support local news, covering their missions, programs, priorities, and who they work with. The goals? Make the field easier to navigate, boost coordination and help newsmakers find the resources they need to deliver better information.
How might a bold "field agenda" bring together emerging local news leaders? The big thread running through all our work is making civic life more accessible and inspiring. We bring mission-driven organizations, funders and communities together to turn big ideas into action because we see "civic life 2.0" coming soon. In all our travels and conversations with people working across fields including arts/culture, government, local info, faith and labor, we're noticing patterns that both confirm and challenge what we thought. We're watching a renewed commitment to civic engagement develop right before our eyes.
Do any of your interests or work intersect with our projects? Hit reply and let us know! We’d love to chat and learn from each other.
Work we’re celebrating
Here are a few projects we’ve recently helped support, or had the joy of attending as guests:
News Futures recently launched publicly and Darryl, its Lead Steward, wrote a letter to the project’s 500+ signatories about the movement they’re helping build.
Civic News Company piloted another Civic Information Needs Census, this time in New York City. We helped out with their Chicago pilot last year, and applaud this effort and others like it that are trying to answer this question: How well are communities’ critical information needs being met by civic information producers? This includes news organizations, libraries, schools, government agencies, individuals, and community groups.
Anika recently attended the 2025 Local News Researchers Workshop hosted in North Carolina and wrote about three takeaways that’s helping inform this project and the work that Commoner does.
A Knight Foundation endorsement of our JSO report has us thinking of how we can best build on existing field/funder frameworks.
A Nieman Lab review of our JSO report is a deep dive on our process and the four goals we propose journalism support organizations, funders, and newsmakers unite around toward a field agenda.
Our friends at Listening Post Collective wrote about our collaboration to help civic media providers get the help they need.
What’s next
We’re beginning to book work for the second half of this year and into next year. Interested in chatting with us about a project? Reach out and let us know at hello@commoner.company.