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ᑖᓂᓯ ᓂᐚᐦᑰᒫᑲᓇᐠ ᐁᑿ ᓂᑑᑌᒼᑎᐠ
tânisi, niwâhkômâkanak êkwa nitôtêmtik,
Hello, my relatives and friends,
This past Wednesday, News Media Canada, the industry body that administers the funds from Heritage Canada for the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI), sent out an email detailing when we could expect the renewal application process to open up for the next funding year.
The Local Journalism Initiative is a program that was piloted beginning in 2019, as the federal government's way to support a struggling journalism industry. It offered $60,00 towards the salary of a reporter. News outlets had to apply with a proposal for a new reporting beat, and even if a position was rewarded, there was no guarantee that the funding for the beat would be renewed –– outlets had to reapply every year.
The program was meant to be temporary. Five years, we were told. So it was a relief when, earlier this month, the government announced that the LJI Program would be renewed for another three years.
The only problem? Our funding for this year expires in three days. The next funding year begins on Monday. And, the announcement by News Media Canada offers no timeline for when the application process for the next funding year will get underway. That's right, we haven't even had the chance to reapply for the positions that expire on Sunday.
IndigiNews was created in 2018, a joint project of APTN and Discourse Media, who each contributed resources to launch it in Spring of 2020. From the start, the business model hinged on the Local Journalism Initiative, which awarded our scrappy little startup five reporting beats.
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A screenshot of the very first post published on Indiginews.com, published April 26, 2020.
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A year later, LJI slashed three of the five reporting positions, leaving us with two beats – Indigenous Child "Welfare" and Education on Vancouver Island and syilx Okanagan. Those are the two beats we've been reporting on since then.
When I was brought on, in the fall of 2021, I knew the clock was ticking. I had to figure out a way to stabilize IndigiNews' funding situation. I was able to successfully apply for funding from two foundations: Inspirit Foundation and McConnell Foundation. Both organizations signed on for three years, which was wonderful.
This funding helped pay for what the LJI doesn't cover: IndigiNews' overhead costs, including my salary, our tech stack (the website and newsletter platform), digitial advertising, editing, software subscriptions, etc.
In 2021, I believed that within three years, I could get IndigiNews to the point where we would be wholly or at least mostly reader-funded. Since the first year, we've been lucky enough to have about 20% of our operating costs be covered by readers support.
But my learning curve was steep, as I was new to the industry. I had accidentally wandered in to an industry in crisis, one that had been in decline for decades.
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Some search results from Google on the struggling journalism industry.
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There have been many attempts to re-jig the business model to save journalism, and these became trends that began passing through the industry with lighting speed.
For a few years, everybody thought podcasts were going to save us. There was a flurry of hiring and podcast departments sprung up in every major newsroom in the land. Three years later, many of them disbanded, laying off the majority of reporters.
Then there was the tech-bro dream, and for a few years the industry seemed to be saved, in the hands of some incredibly confident billionaires. But that bubble burst also, as employees of Overstory Media Group can attest to.
So what now? Some reporters have started Substack newsletters. This platform offers journalists who have already built a name for themselves the ability to financially support themselves. Some media outlets, including IndigiNews, have sometimes turned to crowd funders to raise money for specific stories.
Since I began this crash course in journalism, I've had the opportunity to meet a ton of amazing, creative and passionate journalists from all around the world. In my Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership at the City University of New York, I've been privy to two hours of weekly instruction from esteemed folks in the industry, and from leaders in business and strategy.
I've had the opportunity to listen to well known journalists from the New York Times and other storied institutions. Some of the folks in my CUNY cohort work at those storied institutions, actually – The AP, Reuters, USA Today, Business Insider and Time, just to name a few American examples. It's humbling, and it's also instructive.
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Some headlines from 2023, when Overstory Media Group's business model started showing cracks.
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My takeaway? No one has the answer for how to fix the news industry. Ultimately, there may not be one answer. Instead, there may be a thousand different solutions – one for each and every outlet. But I've come to my own conclusions, at least for IndigiNews.
I no longer believe that IndigiNews will ever get to the point where we are 100% reader-supported, and I no longer believe we should be completely reader supported, given the communities we serve.
I think journalism is a public good, like sidewalks and schools, and should be funded that way. I know that in the United States, any "state-funded" media can be inherently suspect, but I think many other countries (of the "Commonwealth" – ugh, sorry) have shown that independent journalism can exist even while government funded.
So, that's where I'm at today, in regards to IndigiNews. As we wait with baited breath, wondering when we can reapply for the three LJI beats we have, which just happen to be our only beats, I'm looking to the future and dreaming.
There's a lot of money in the world. I know some of it is hurtling towards us through dimensions seen and unseen even now, traveling on the winds that play with my hair in springtime. I'm grateful in advance, because I have prayed with tobacco for this incredible team and the beautiful people we serve.
hiy hiy, Grandmothers and Grandfathers, Ancestors and Spirits, for taking such good care of us here at IndigiNews. We are your servants here on this precious land, doing our best to practice the Natural Law of Tapwêwin, or truth-telling.
Witnessing.
Integrity through storytelling.
And we're lucky to be doing it.
Aunty Eden
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Eden Fineday is a nehiyaw iskwew (Cree woman) from the Sweetgrass First Nation in Treaty 6 territory. She is the publisher of IndigiNews, where she leads a team that is decolonizing the media with their trauma-informed approaches. She endeavours to be a good relation as an uninvited guest on the territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqeum), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and
Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Peoples.
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IndigiNews, 213 – 1130 Sun Peaks Road, Sun Peaks, BC V0E5N0, Canada
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