In Detroit you can text a reporter and get a problem solved.
Outlier Media is pioneering the use of a text message platform to help locals get accountability and action where they need it.
The problems faced by local newspapers in the US are legion, but on the podcast this week, we talked to two news organizations supported by the Knight Foundation who are thriving by approaching their communities’ need for information in a different way.
Citizens in Detroit can text the word “Detroit” to the newsroom at Outlier Media and get accountability and action where they need it.
Outlier Media set up a text messaging platform to receive details about local issues. In addition to getting story tips, its reporters aim to get problems answered by calling the people responsible for responding to a variety of local issues big and small: uneven sidewalks to property tax fraud.
Candice Fortman is the executive director of the Detroit’s non-profit. She spoke on the podcast about how Outlier Media started out - by first understanding the information needs of the community.
“What are Detroiters having a hard time getting information about, in order for them to survive and thrive in the city?” Fortman said. “We also look at public record information, non-emergency 911 calls, calls to United Way to see what people are asking questions about and what they’re complaining about, because that complaint data is a very good indicator of where there are accountability gaps.”
The Outlier newsroom is highly responsive. It promises someone will return messages and calls within 48 hours to get answer to questions that are often from people dealing with serious emergencies like power black-outs in the middle of summer. That responsiveness has helped the news organization build trust.
“We are dealing with people who are in an information crisis, meaning that they need immediate information to get themselves out of a problem,” explained Fortman. The answers can mean the difference between people staying in their own homes, getting their lights back on and keeping the water from being shut off.
Outlier Media is one of many thriving local news entities supported by the Knight Foundation, which helps local news companies figure out revenue and the back-end side of their businesses to help them become self-sustaining. The Foundation’s VP journalism, Jim Brady, oversees a $500 million effort to revitalize local news in the US. Brady, a former executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, helped The Media Mix connect with Outlier Media and Geoffrey King, the executive editor of Open Vallejo, a non-profit investigative news site in California focused on exposing police corruption.
King shared some of the stories he’s published about the high number of citizens killed in his area by police and the need for greater accountability. He was seeking public records from the police department and found, “They were shooting somebody on average, our research shows, once every four months for 20 years.”
Knight Foundation stepped in to back King’s reporting. On the podcast, Brady told me that big well financed news organizations with legal departments once stood behind the biggest investigative projects. “The percentage of stories now that could potentially get you sued, a huge number of them are now being done by organizations with no legal support,” he said.
Brady has had to do a fair bit of hand holding to get local businesses to support local news organizations, in part because of a lack of trust and the proliferation of pink slime websites, often thinly veiled efforts to promote political parties.
I asked both Geoffrey and Candice about how they’re employing AI to improve local journalism and increase accountability in local government. Listen to the podcast to hear the unique ways they’re keeping tabs on those in power.
Thanks to Executive Producers Jamie Maglietta and Ray Hernandez and all at Situation Room Studios. Share your business news with our partners at EZ Newswire.