The Nonprofit News Trend Continues in Baltimore and Cleveland

We have covered shifts of news outlets toward nonprofit status or ownership by nonprofits in a variety of locations, including Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, and Texas. Here are two more recent developments in this area:

• The N.Y. Times reports that having failed to buy The Baltimore Sun, Steven Bainum is now pivoting to launching The Baltimore Banner, a nonprofit digital news outlet, a story first reported by The Atlantic (see end of article). The Washington Post further reports that Bainum has committed $50 million to this new venture, which has hired Kimi Yoshino (pictured), formerly managing editor with the L.A. Times, to help launch it.

• And Cleveland.com reports that a coalition of Cleveland-based organizations have raised more than $5.8 in partnership with the American Journalism Project to launch a nonprofit newsroom there in 2022. The eventual goal is to open newsrooms across Ohio as part of the Ohio Local News Initiative.

That these developments are part of a larger trend in the United States is documented by recent data from the Institute for Nonprofit News. Findings included:

• A total of 33 nonprofit local news outlets launched in 2018-2020, with at least 92 total such outlets as of the end of 2020.
• As of 2020, there were 60 state and 21 regional nonprofit news outlets. 
• Also as of 2020, there were 47 national and 23 global nonprofit news outlets.
• There are at least 50 nonprofit news outlets that primarily serve communities of color.

Lloyd Mayer