Press Forward is Funding WordPress Publishers
In September last year, I wrote about the launch of Press Forward and how they had promised to invest $500 million in local news organizations over the next five years. It has been a year now, and that money is starting to flow to WordPress publishers.
A total of 205 small local news outlets will receive a portion of $20 million in funding from Press Forward. The majority will receive $100,000 in operating support.
This initiative aims to revitalize local journalism. The list of 205 outlets is absolutely dominated by WordPress. Here are some of the WordPress-powered news sites that will be getting support:
- Latino News, a free weekly newspaper that has remained one of the most effective communication bridges for the Hispanic community in Alabama.
- Black Iowa News, which launched during COVID to help Black Iowans survive a virus that disproportionately harmed them and recently published its voter guide for the 2024 election.
- Arizona Luminaria, an independent nonprofit journalism organization publishing local news in English and Spanish. It provides equitable access to local information that empowers readers in Tucson and Southern Arizona—especially Latinx, Black, Indigenous, people of color, and other historically marginalized and
- Ouray County Plaindealer in Colorado, where a husband-and-wife team covers an area of 5,000 people. Their reporting on the local sheriff’s office led to 93% of voters recalling him from office.
- 285 South which is Atlanta’s only English-language news outlet dedicated to covering the metro region’s growing immigrant communities.
