From the news director: Take the Community Foundation's local news survey

Jill Bond, The Herald-Times
·2 min read

I love spring.

I love to open my windows to fresh air, hear nature come alive and watch the flowers and trees bud and bloom (although not the Bradford/Callery pear trees that MC-IRIS has been telling us all to cut down for many years. Did you know you if you remove one, you can get a replacement for this invasive? Check out https://www.mc-iris.org/reduce-invasive-species-challenge.html for details.)

A Callery pear tree in bloom.
A Callery pear tree in bloom.

Spring is a hopeful time, a time to dig into the soil, to sort out a closet for garage sale season, to walk or bike through your neighborhood and wave to the people with whom you share the community. It brings the promise of summer festivals, and open tables at area restaurants, maybe travel or family reunions or a warm day at the beach at Lake Monroe.

The hope I feel extends to all the attention being paid to local news in our community.

We are lucky that Bloomington has multiple information outlets working to keep us informed about what’s going on.

Earlier this year, I participated in “Meet the Media Day,” an event organized by the Nonprofit Alliance. It’s a chance for area nonprofits to connect with media representatives and practice pitching stories. Panelists from all our local news providers give feedback and share insights into how each operates, which stories appeal to us and for what reasons.

The panel provides a window into what makes us each distinct and where we converge.

In 2011, the Federal Communications Commission published a report on the state of media, and concluded, “Throughout the history of this nation, newspapers have provided the bulk of civically important functions that democracy requires. Good TV, radio and web operations do this, too, but traditionally, and currently, broadcast and Internet media rely heavily on newspapers to provide original reporting on topics that matter.”

Yes, the report is old, but the challenges facing local newspapers are very much of the moment. Just as our area nonprofits rely on local media to share their mission and needs with the community, Bloomington’s local media outlets rely on each other to both spur better reporting through competition and to cover and uncover stories of great impact on all of us.

That is why I’m asking you all to take a survey from the Community Foundation of Bloomington-Monroe County. We have begun building a fund at the Community Foundation, the sole purpose of which is to expand access to local news. This survey is an important step toward securing the future of our community’s media ecosystem and will help the Community Foundation determine what to do with the funds we have gathered.

You can help us grow the local news fund by making a donation at https://shorturl.at/bevx9.

Take the local news survey here: https://go.iu.edu/5G0o.

Jill Bond is news director for The Herald-Times. Reach her at jbond@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Monroe County Community Foundation collecting data about local news