About MINC
The United States is losing two newspapers a week. At the turn of the century, Maine newsrooms employed over 300 daily journalists. Today, that number is around 90. When newspapers shrink or close, communities suffer: fewer people volunteer or vote, taxes increase and corruption flourishes.
Maine deserves better. Despite a strong history of local newspaper ownership, Maine needs a new approach to sustaining its local journalism ecosystem.
The Bangor Daily News, the Unity Foundation, Eastern Maine Development Corporation and four pilot partners have come together to develop a collaborative and long-term funding model to support Maine-based journalism, with funded content freely available to the public via all participating media partners.
We believe that local journalism is a keystone of healthy communities.
We fundraise together. We share all funded content. No paywalls on content funded through the collaborative. We listen locally, collaborate statewide, and lift all boats.
MINC supporters include the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation and the Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation.
Join us in developing a new ecosystem-level approach for expanding news access.
The MINC Approach
Core Values
- Local journalism is a public good.
- Maine-based media best serves Mainers.
- Stakeholders must have a voice regarding information vital to their communities.
- Access to information, government transparency, freedom of the press and digital equity must be actively protected if they are to flourish.
- Local journalism’s responsibility is to provide information and oversight that helps all Mainers make decisions about their communities.
- Maine is best served by a plurality of diverse media voices.
- Both competition and collaboration within journalism are healthy.
- Partnerships work best when each partner brings their relative strengths to bear.
This critical work requires parallel strategies, and will begin with a two-year pilot
MINC will sustain and strengthen the ability of independent local newsrooms to serve Maine communities with a dual focus on both journalism and technology:
- Strengthen local reporting capacity and build a collaborative inter-newsroom structure to facilitate statewide accountability and enterprise reporting
- Provide resources to build digital capacity and increase revenue resiliency.
GOAL 1: Address unmet news and information needs of Maine communities
Project: Improve day to day, municipal, and accountability reporting in rural areas by placing new reporting resources in underserved areas and news deserts.
Outcome: Over the course of two years, this will increase daily news and information reporting, bring to light statewide local issues that would not otherwise be covered, and build collaboration among newsrooms.
MINC and our philanthropic partners will invest in critical civic journalism projects supporting two core strategies
GOAL 2: Build technical capacity of smaller independent community news sources
Project: Grow digital capacity and increase revenue resiliency by establishing a digital technology fund to improve audience reach, digital equity and advertising capacity.
Outcome: Over the course of two years, MINC will disburse planning and implementation grants, and provide training and implementation support to partner organizations to help them bring their digital technology to industry standard, improve digital share in overall revenue and serve a wider readership.
Leadership
Ben Barrows
General Manager, Penobscot Bay Press
Jo Easton
MINC Project Director | Director of Development,
Bangor Daily News
Lori Roming
Research & Program Officer, Unity Foundation
Lee Umphrey
President & CEO,
Eastern Maine Development Corporation