Housed at the Miami Foundation, Press Forward, the $500 million movement to reimagine local news, has issued an open call on Closing Local Coverage Gaps for funding focused on addressing the long-standing inequalities in journalistic coverage of underserved communities.

Local news outlets that fill coverage gaps with original reporting and have a budget under $1 million are eligible to apply for Press Forward funding. Through the open call, Press Forward will provide more than 100 news outlets with an expected $100,000 each in funding, whether they are nonprofit or for-profit entities. The funding will be unrestricted, general operating support, allowing the news organizations to spend it as needed to sustain and grow their operations.

Press Forward is investing funding in four areas: strengthening local newsrooms that have the trust of their communities, accelerating the enabling environment for news production and dissemination, closing longstanding inequalities in journalism coverage and practice, and advancing public policies that expand access to local news and civic information.

For this open call, Press Forward will prioritize organizations that are producing and delivering news and information to underserved audiences such as communities of color, linguistically diverse communities, low-wealth rural communities, and others not adequately served, reached, or represented.

For complete program guidelines and application instructions, see the Press Forward website.

Deadline: June 12, 2024