Start.coop receives Press Forward grant funding to build a Shared Media Services hub for worker-friendly news organizations 

Start.coop will use the grant to launch a Shared Media Services hub to help independent, worker-friendly media organizations save money on back-office services and save time through shared training, tools, and best practices.

The new initiative answers the calls of struggling local news outlets, grassroots media organizations, and journalists who want more efficient back-office operational systems, allowing them to spend more time pursuing their core mission: getting information to their communities.

Start.coop is the nation’s only accelerator for shared ownership, and a systems change catalyst committed to building a more equitable and resilient U.S. economy that shares prosperity among the many, not just the few.

This project was developed in partnership with Defector Media, a worker-owned journalism company that has become a model for journalists wishing to escape ongoing corporatization of the news and information sector. The Media Economies Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder will inform the project with research grounded in its experience helping to develop cooperatives in journalism and beyond. Other project partners include the Freelance Solidarity Project, the National Writers Union, the NewsGuild, the Community and the Worker Ownership Project at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.

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The funding is part of Press Forward’s Open Call on Infrastructure, which is providing $22 million to 22 projects that address the urgent challenges local newsrooms face today.  Press Forward’s recipients are strengthening newsrooms’ sustainability – tackling revenue and operations challenges so the field can thrive long-term. Other recipients are working to protect a free and independent press, ensuring newsrooms have safety protocols in place, mental health services to help reporters heal from trauma and burnout and legal resources to face challenges to their reporting. 

For more information about the grant awardees, visit pressforward.news/infrastructure25.