A Community-Building Dinner in Newark Homes on Ways to Strengthen Local Media

On Dec 14, Free Press held a community-building dinner at Gallery Aferro in Newark (NJ) as part of our News Voices: New Jersey campaign, which connects reporters and residents in ways that benefit both groups. A group of 60 individuals — including statewide allies, Newark-based community activists, and journalists from Newark and around the state — came together to break bread, share ideas, learn more about each other and build trust ... all things we needed to do to begin working toward a common purpose. That goal? Strengthening local media. Those who were new to News Voices came with open minds, not sure what to expect. As a Free Press organizer, I had questions too: Should we talk about what we’re doing to better the lives of our members? Should we share ideas and strategies we think are essential to reshaping local media? These are all valid and important questions. But we also sought to raise an even more crucial question that can lead to pivotal change: If you could reinvent local media to serve residents’ information needs, what would it look like?