Funding for the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage, has been extended for a sixth year, from 2024-25.
The Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) will be supporting between 20 and 25 journalists creating civic journalism in underserved communities, hosted by community TV stations.
An open call will be held in July for community TV organizations who would like to host a journalist under the LJI. Check back here or on CACTUS' web site at cactusmedia.ca for updates.
To see a list of currently funded organizations, click here.
Program Background:
Since 2019, the Local Journalism Initiative has supported not-for-profit journalism in underserved communities. The government's goal is that this funding support “professional journalists” for the production of “civic journalism”: that is, coverage and commentary that support democratic life of the community including municipal council, elections, school boards, band councils, and other significant community organizations and stakeholders whose activities have a large impact on the community.
CACTUS and the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec (the Fédération) were chosen along with five other Administrative Organizations to act as intermediaries between government and media to deploy this money.
Since 2021 the Initiative has supported not only geographically underserved communities, but also underrepresented voices in the media, in particular Indigenous, racialized and official language minority communities. In 2024-25 CACTUS will distribute:
- Approximately $800,000 to community media organizations that are underserved geographically
- A minimum of $337,500 to support other under-represented voices.
Eligibility:
CACTUS and Fédération members and non-members are eligible to apply if they:
- are not-for-profit organizations, owned and operated by the community
- produce and distribute audio-visual community media
- train and facilitate community members and local organizations to create content as part of an open-access mandate
- are journalistically 'underserved' and experiencing news poverty
- can demonstrate a commitment to serve under-represented communities.
The Opportunity:
Community media organizations can apply for up to $60,000 per annum to hire or contract a freelance journalist. This includes all employment-related costs (EI, CPP, Workers Compensation etc) or HST, PST or QST if they engage independent contractors. A portion of the funding (an average of 5%) can be used to purchase production equipment to enable the work of the journalist. Travel to remote locations may also be considered an eligible cost.
Host organizations may also apply for funding to upgrade distribution equipment to reach new viewers with the additional content. While there is no specific cap for such funding, there is a limited amount for the program as a whole, so priority will be given where the need is greatest.
CACTUS will conduct a national hiring call to assist organizations that cannot locate a qualified journalist locally.
CACTUS will provide standard freelance and employment contracts and personnel policies required under the LJI (if recipients do not have their own), including stipulations regarding anti-harassment policies and employment equity.
Program Commitments:
Host organizations that employ journalists under the Local Journalism Initiative will be expected to work with citizens and local organizations to produce civic journalism.
The journalistic content produced under this initiative will be made available to the general public and to other media outlets across Canada under a Creative Commons License. Each host organization will disseminate the content through its own transmitter, the local cable system and/or web site, as well as through a national community media portal established and maintained by CACTUS ComMediaPortal.ca/PortailMédias.ca. All content produced by the contracted LJI journalist must be uploaded simultaneously to the program’s national distribution platform.
Journalists as well as their supervisors at the host organization will be required to attend a series of Project Development Meetings to review reporting requirements under the program, to develop and refine the civic-function journalistic formats and content to be delivered. Host organizations must be prepared for the journalists and their supervisors to spend either 3-4 days away from the host community (in which case travel costs will be paid under the Initiative) or up to 12 hours online distributed over several days. Additional professional development may be offered as the need arises at no charge to participating organizations.
* See Appendix A for more detail about program deliverables.
Application Process:
If your organization would like to host a journalist under the Local Journalism Initiative, please fill out and submit a Statement of Interest form. Upon receipt, a CACTUS program officer will get in touch to share the latest program intake information.
Applications will be evaluated by a jury of no fewer than 3 representatives of the Administrative Organizations, who are not members, employees, or otherwise associated with any applicant.
Selection criteria will include:
- non-profit status
- the ability to train and support ordinary citizens and local organizations in media production
- the organization’s ability to distribute video content as widely as possible to the community
- the degree to which the applicant serves a community experiencing `news poverty`, which can be addressed by the presence of a qualified journalist
- geographic, linguistic, and ethno-cultural balance
- to increase civic function journalism in as many underserved communities as possible
- demonstrated commitment and a concrete plan to increase inclusion of under-represented voices in their community
Current ranking criteria (used independently by all jury members):
- Non-profit board open to all community members? (yes/no)
- Produces, distributes community TV as primary focus? (yes/no)
- Trains and facilitates citizen production? Access mandate? (yes/no)
- How well org goals align with LJI Score (0-5)
- Journalistically underserved? Potential to expand geographic coverage to nearby communities? Score (0-10)
- Potential to increase diversity (Score 0-5)
- Current reach Score (0-5)
- Multimedia capacity to increase reach? Score (0-5)
- Capacity to support the LJI journalist Score (0-5)
- If a past LJI recipient, how well did they meet program requirements? Score (-5 - 0) 0 == met requirements
If you have questions, please contact:
Dean Reeds
director@cactuslji.com
(705) 888-8688
Unsuccessful Applications:
If your application is not successful, you will receive an email at the contact email address you supplied in your application. If you believe the jury has overlooked information pertinent to your application, you can file an appeal within 7 days of receiving the jury's decision.
Appendices
Appendix A: What is citizen journalism in relation to the Local Journalism Initiative?
While the journalists that will be deployed in the private sector by some of the other Administrative Organizations will function as traditional journalists—spending all of their time researching and producing content, one of the strengths of CACTUS' application to Canadian Heritage was that the community media process involves training and enabling volunteers to produce content, with the result that:
- news journalism skills, processes, and infrastructure will remain in the community after the funding to support the journalists is gone
- more content can be produced by a professional journalist facilitating citizen volunteers than by the journalist working alone.
Therefore, the journalists who will work with community media organizations through this program will be expected to act primarily as trainers, facilitators, curators and news editors, involving other staff and volunteers in the news production process.
The Program Development meeting that these journalists will attend with their supervisors at the beginning of their deployments will include consideration of how to include citizens and local organizations in the news production process, and how to build dialogue and engagement around civic topics in the community.
Appendix B: Definitions
Journalist: Heritage Canada requires that journalists hired under this program are “professional”. While it has not provided an exact definition of “professional journalist”, they should have a journalism degree or equivalent experience, such that they are comfortable handling investigative, political, or challenging stories in a balanced way, are recognized by their peers as journalists, have a history of producing news stories (for recent graduates, student work is acceptable), and devote as much time to journalism as economically possible (in recognition of the fact that journalism is now an entrepreneurial activity, not necessarily a profession where it is possible to get an on-going staff job).
Civic Journalism: Civic journalism produced under the LJI must pertain to the democratic life of
the community: coverage of key institutions such as city, town, or band councils, school boards or
corporations that wield significant economic or social power, environment issues and so on.
Coverage of arts and entertainment, sports, lifestyle programming and so on will not generally be
allowed unless they play a central cultural, economic or social role in the community and this role is
changing or in question.
The term “News” in connection with this program does not necessarily imply a traditional big-city newscast made of small segments. Civic media produced under the LJI could include gavel-to-gavel coverage of municipal council meetings, a political analysis talk show about a council meeting (with or without studio audience), or longer news magazine-style segments or documentaries. The format should fit the needs of your community. Applicants will receive assistance refining their program deliverables during the Program Development meeting at the beginning of the journalist deployment.
Underserved Community: An underserved community from the point of view of civic journalism could be a total news desert, it could be experiencing news poverty, a lack of quality investigative journalism, or the coverage could be inconsistent or focus on some groups, issues, and geographic neighbourhoods to the exclusion of others. As part of the application process, we ask applicants to tell us about the sources of news and local information available in their communities, and what their goals are in hosting a qualified journalist.
Appendix C: Distribution
Each host organization will distribute content via their own transmitter, the local cable system, web
site, or other means approved by CACTUS and the Fédération.
Each host organization's content will also be distributed through a national community media portal, ComMediaPortal.ca/PortailMédias.ca has been developed and administered by CACTUS and the Fédération. Journalists will regularly upload content to their host organizations' YouTube channels, which will be mirrored to the national portal.
The goal of the national community media portal is to:
- promote content produced under the LJI to the general public
- cross-promote content among host organizations as well as other community media
- organizations
- contextualize content for other media outlets and enable them to download it free of charge under a Creative Commons license at the same time as it is released locally (a key requirement of the Department of Canadian Heritage)
- aggregate content from different parts of the country regarding common issues
- enable collaboration among LJI-placed community journalists
- support public participation and awareness; for example, by enabling comments and
- discussion boards
- support media literacy
Host organizations will receive assistance if necessary to make content produced under the LJI available on their web sites, and to ensure smooth integration between their web sites and the national portal. Host organizations may also request assistance if they need distribution equipment or upgrades that would significantly leverage the presence of the journalist in the community; for example to reach new neighbourhoods or local audiences.
Appendix D: Program Development Meeting
Journalists as well as their supervisors at the host organization will be required to attend a Project Development Meeting either online or in person to review reporting requirements under the program, to develop and refine the civic journalistic formats and content to be delivered.
When conditions permit to gather in person, host organizations must be prepared for their journalists and supervisors to spend 3-4 days away from the host community, or, if gathering online, spend at least 2.5 hours per day over five days attending the online meetings. If gathering in person, travel costs will be paid by the LJI.
Purpose of the meeting:
- Share and strengthen skills needed to make the most of the opportunity
- Develop civic journalism program formats and deliverables
- Develop LJI reporting requirements and content sharing processes
- Build common purpose and capacity among journalists and community media organizations
Topics to be discussed:
- Producing civic journalism with citizen journalists and local organizations
- Getting the most out of the national community media portal
- Developing civic journalism program formats and deliverables
- LJI reporting requirements
- Review workplace standards to ensure employment equity and contractual obligations of the LJI
