The Face of Philanthropy

The Nonprofit Helping Local Newsrooms Tell Stories Visually

CatchLight, based in San Francisco, has been placing photographers in local newsrooms since 2019.

May 7, 2024

CatchLight fellow Aryana Noroozi photographed the San Bernardino PaceSetter Team drill team at the Martin Luther King Parade and Extravaganza for Black Voice News.

It’s hard to look away from a compelling photograph. For news organizations, an arresting image can draw audiences into a story.

But it’s been a tough time for visual journalism. As local newsrooms have cut back — and in some cases, gone under — the number of staff photographers and other visual journalists have fallen precipitously. And few of the nonprofit journalism efforts springing up to fill the void include visual staff.

CatchLight, a nonprofit in San Francisco, is committed to revitalizing photojournalism in local communities. Since 2019, the organization has placed photographers in local nonprofit newsrooms and supported them with additional services like photo editing and social-media strategy.

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It’s hard to look away from a compelling photograph. For news organizations, an arresting image can draw audiences into a story.

But it’s been a tough time for visual journalism. As local newsrooms have cut back — and in some cases, gone under — the number of staff photographers and other visual journalists has fallen precipitously. And few of the nonprofit journalism efforts springing up to fill the void include visual staff.

CatchLight, a nonprofit in San Francisco, is committed to revitalizing photojournalism in communities. Since 2019, the organization has placed photographers in local newsrooms and supported them with additional services like photo editing and social-media strategy.

Visual storytelling has the power to help restore trust in the media, connect audiences to important information, and spur change, says Elodie Mailliet Storm, CEO of CatchLight. “The act of photography itself is an act of community and proximity,” she says. “You have to be close to people to be able to take a picture.”

The number of newsrooms where CatchLight is able to help subsidize the salary of a photojournalist is relatively small. It has placed 19 fellows over the past five years, and beginning in 2025, it will place 10 fellows every two years.

But the organization has started an ambitious effort to create a shared visual desk to help newsrooms across the country. It has $7.5 million in commitments over three years, including $1 million from the Press Forward philanthropic collaboration, together with additional funds from Arnold Ventures, the Knight Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and other grant makers.

Local newsrooms don’t have the money to hire specialists like visual editors, social-media producers, and video producers, Mailliet Storm says. “The idea is that we pool those resources, and [local newsrooms] become members of the desk and are able to access these services at a fraction of the cost of what it would cost them to have these people full-time on staff.”