The changing media landscape is testing the relevancy and innovation of news operations all over the country. It’s no surprise then that new partnerships among media organizations are turning to Web sites as outlets for local news.
In San Francisco, private and public entities are coming together to create the Bay Area News Project, a nonprofit local news Web site for the San Francisco bay metropolitan area. But unlike other enterprises, the collaboration between the KQED public broadcasting organization, the University of California Berkeley, and a wealthy benefactor, they have expressed a commitment to ensuring diversity in news coverage.
“I’ve never been anywhere more diverse,” said Scott Walton, a spokesperson for KQED-San Francisco. “We know the Bay area is diverse and within a few years it will be a minority majority region.”
KQED Radio is the most listened to National Public Radio affiliate in the country, Walton said, and it plans to use its popularity to fill in news coverage gaps for underrepresented groups.
