Exclusive: Chalkbeat expands to public health, hires media veterans to run new parent organization
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Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization that covers education at the local level, plans to launch a new outlet called Healthbeat this summer for local coverage of public health, its co-founder Elizabeth Green told Axios.
Why it matters: It's part of a broader expansion effort by Chalkbeat to bring civic news coverage to local markets by focusing on specific verticals.
- Chalkbeat, which launched a decade ago by Green and journalist Philissa Cramer, expanded into coverage of voting in 2020 and made "Votebeat" a permanent newsroom the following year.
As part of the expansion, Chalkbeat will now be housed under a new umbrella organization, run by Green, called Civic News Company.
- Civic News Company will employ a leadership staff to serve all three newsrooms: Chalkbeat, Votebeat and Healthbeat.
- The team plans to invest more in expanding the nonprofit's brand and audience, as well as building a stronger membership model for readers, Green said.
State of play: Civic News Company has hired two media veterans to begin fleshing out a leadership team for the company. Both will report to Green, who is CEO of the new holding company.
- Shani O. Hilton, formerly a managing editor at the Los Angeles Times and vice president of news and programming at BuzzFeed News, will join as editor-in-chief of Civic News Company, overseeing all editorial across the three newsrooms.
- Andrew Golis, formerly chief content officer at WNYC Radio and a general manager and vice president at Vox, will join as chief operating officer, overseeing business and operations across the three newsrooms and the holding company.
Zoom in: All three newsrooms aim to provide topic-specific local coverage in different markets.
- Chalkbeat covers Chicago, Colorado, Detroit, Indiana, Newark, New York, Philadelphia and Tennessee. Votebeat covers Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Texas. Healthbeat will launch in New York City and Atlanta to start.
- There are around 80 people in total that work for Civic News Company, per Green, with about 50 in the newsroom.
- The nonprofit funds its enterprises mostly through philanthropy. It raised $14.7 million in its latest fiscal year.
The big picture: There have been numerous attempts to address the decline of local news with new digital ventures, but few have been able to replicate the commercial success of the newspaper model before the internet.
- Many have grown more reliant on philanthropic support.
- Green believes one tactic that's been overlooked is the focus on topic-specific coverage rather than broader community news that newspapers used to own, like crime, weather and local sports.
- "I think what local news needs is new ideas, not nostalgia," Green said, noting that "there's not a great model for general interest, local news. It just doesn't scale."
Go deeper: Votebeat launches as a permanent newsroom
