In recent weeks, Springfield, Ohio, has become the focus of national media attention after former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, falsely accused the city’s Haitian immigrants of abducting and eating people’s pets. Those incendiary comments not only led to dozens of bomb threats on the city’s schools, hospitals, and government buildings, but highlighted a problem that has long plagued immigrant communities in the United States: a lack of quality, up-to-date local news about their lives.
Nonprofit Newsrooms
The pandemic exacerbated the problem, resulting in the closure of more than 150 longstanding ethnic media outlets and leaving immigrants without consistent fact-based news and information in their native languages. Without these trusted news sources, dis- and misinformation have spread rapidly.
Fortunately, a growing number of largely nonprofit newsrooms are emerging to fill the gap. Many see their mission as not just to inform and keep government leaders accountable, but also to provide information that can help readers navigate their daily lives. The most acute news needs for many immigrants in America — particularly those who are working class and newly arrived — are how to access shelter, food, government benefits, health care, and employment.
At Documented, a nonprofit newsroom co-founded by Mazin that covers New York’s immigrant communities, this approach means setting up ways to hear directly from readers through two-way communication channels on WhatsApp, WeChat, and NextDoor about their information needs. Those responses have led to the development of more than 150 resource guides covering issues such as how to open a bank account, gain access to emergency shelter, and find mental health support.
Centering the voices of people in their communities is also fundamental to the editorial strategy of these newsrooms. Oakland, Calif.-based El Tímpano, for example, recognizes that the most respected information sources for many Latino immigrants are family, friends, and neighbors, rather than institutions and government agencies. So the news outlet conducts workshops designed to help local immigrants identify and stop the spread of misinformation among family and neighbors.
Similarly, the digital news service Conecta Arizona, hosts daily cafecitos — dedicated hours on the publication’s WhatsApp group where readers can engage in real-time with the editorial team, and ask questions to experts such as immigration attorneys and elected officials to better understand and debunk misinformation they encounter online.
Needs-Based Journalism
Each of these efforts offers a new way of thinking about nonprofit journalism, one that more grant makers should embrace.
Harry Backlund, co-founder and director of operations at City Bureau in Chicago, argues that nonprofit media has both an opportunity and responsibility to deliver quality information that helps audiences meet their basic needs for housing, food, and safety. No where is that truer than in immigrant communities.
Grant makers working on immigrant rights and services, as well as issues such as civic engagement and strengthening democracy, should recognize that high-caliber immigrant-focused newsrooms are a critical piece of the puzzle. And funders who already support nonprofit newsrooms need to expand their view of what it looks like to inform the public.
In addition to serving readers directly, these newsrooms hold those in power to account through investigative, fact-based reporting on the issues that matter most to their audience.
The Haitian Times, for example, has been a leading voice in cutting through the misinformation about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio and painting an accurate picture of their lives and struggles. That work has also made the publication the subject of hateful comments and death threats.
Documented has conducted a major investigation of wage theft, which largely affects immigrant populations, including publishing a searchable database of more than 11 years of data from the New York state and U.S. Departments of Labor. In Chicago, a year-long investigation by Cicero Independiente found substantially worse air quality in immigrant communities compared to surrounding neighborhoods.
And this work is having a real and tangible impact. Documented’s Wage Theft Monitor has prompted legislation that would prohibit violators from doing business in New York state.
At Borealis Philanthropy, where Alicia heads the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, we believe that supporting organizations such as Documented, Sahan Journal in Minneapolis, and Enlace Latino in North Carolina not only serves the unique needs of local immigrants but helps build a more equitable information infrastructure. We hope more funders embrace this approach. Providing all communities, including immigrant populations, with quality, timely, and relevant information is vital to rebalancing systemic inequality and increasing civic engagement.
To do this effectively, funders and the newsrooms they support need to take a more expansive approach to the many ways news outlets can and should serve their communities. Backlund notes that much of journalism today is focused on a narrow slice of the U.S. population — the highly educated and affluent who want news and analysis that meets their intellectual needs. But nonprofit newsrooms can break that mold.
Consider, for example, Migrant Roots Media, a multilingual multimedia platform, which co-hosts the U.S. segment of the Caravana de Madres de Personas Migrantes Desaparecidas. By facilitating storytelling and information exchange, this caravan has helped locate more than 350 migrants and reunite them with their families.
Migrant Roots Media’s work provides an important reminder to foundations focused on immigrant communities and immigrant rights: News and information can and should be a core part of their grant-making strategy because all their direct service work will fall flat if the communities they want to help aren’t adequately informed.
Creating a critical mass of accurate and useful news and information for the more than 46 million immigrants in America will require an openness to new ways of thinking about journalism and its role in society. That spirit of creativity, ingenuity, and community will be a win for immigrants — and for local news.