By: Isaiah S. Showell, Follow South Jersey Multimedia Journalist/’What’s Good’ Host
EWING, N.J. – Imagine being in a room full of people who would do anything they can to preserve local journalism. I was in this room at The College of New Jersey and it was called For the Love of Local Journalism, hosted by the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium on April 15.
Atlantic City Focus and Front Runner New Jersey were in attendance among other publications. Mark Tyler of Atlantic City Focus says that journalists in Atlantic City are doing God’s work.
“Atlantic City is a small town with a bigtime dateline; people typically look for negative news,” said Tyler. “There’s a plethora of it, however there are people out there who do not have big names who are doing God’s work and they’re doing good work and that’s the type of work we highlight.”
The “Documenters” a group out of Newark, New Jersey, that document public meetings to ensure accessibility, transparency, and accountability. They hosted a breakout session to give people who may not know about them a rundown of what they do. Victoria Masteller, the co-manager of the Documenters told me that Documenters are not journalists, but they take notes on the event or meeting they attend and give a fair abridgment of what took place, staying very neutral.
Assembly Majority Leader Lou D. Greenwald (D) was in attendance as well because he said people no longer rely on local journalism and get their news from social media making the future feel scary for him, and several in the room share that feeling.
Nonprofit organizations like Bridgeton’s Hopeloft and others were praised as a medium that champions local journalism and understands the importance of empowering journalists to share stories from their communities utilizing their voice.
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