Narrative Arts’ Free Movement Conference 2018 looked at the local news media ecology.

Narrative Arts is honored to be a recipient of a grant from the North Carolina Local News Lab, which seeks to support people and organizations ensuring North Carolinians gain greater access to the news and information they need to participate fully in their communities and in American civic society overall.

The fund was established in 2017 and 10 organizations were awarded a grant as part of its inaugural round. Narrative Arts is an arts and social justice organization founded in 2011 and has a history of working at the national, regional and local level to tell great stories that inspire, activate and enliven our democracy.

The grant supports Narrative Arts media projects and collaborations and will help launch a series of trainings for citizen journalists featuring established journalists and spotlighting community stories and issues from a grassroots perspective.

“Training citizen journalists and connecting with local journalists will help build local news coverage that matters. The result will be a more vibrant democracy and better relationships between communities and news outlets as they work together to address community challenges.” Narrative Arts staff member  Rend Smith said.  

The North Carolina Local News Lab Fund is a collaborative fund at the North Carolina Community Foundation established by a group of local and national funders who believe in the power of local journalism, local stories, and local people to strengthen our democracy. The project includes an advisory board made up of local and regional funders and practitioners, including from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, Z Smith Reynolds Foundation, AJ Fletcher Foundation, the Prentice Foundation, Democracy Fund, North Carolina Central University and the NC Congress of Latino Organizations.

The grantees include:

• Asheville Writers in the Schools: Word on the Street/La Vos de los Jovenes
• Carolina Public Press: North Carolina Investigative Journalism Collaborative
• Colectivo de Comunicación Participativa de Carolina del Norte (CCPNC): Enlace Latino NC
• Duke University Reporters Lab: North Carolina Fact-Checking Project
• North Carolina Health News
• North Carolina Press Association
• UNC Center for Public TV: Public Media NC and HBCU Radio
• UNC School of Media and Journalism: Trail Blazer
• WNCU: Advancement of Emerging Young, Diverse News Journalists
• Narrative Arts: Media Ecology Project

“This group represents the fund’s commitment to supporting a diverse set of organizations pursuing meaningful projects that can better serve local communities and strengthen the ecosystem overall,” said Teresa Gorman, NC Local News Lab Fund advisory board member. “Each of these grantees also represents vital networks of people, communities and organizations who will be engaged and collaborating with them on their work.”

About Narrative Arts
Narrative Arts is an arts and social justice nonprofit based in Wilmington, North Carolina.  Our award-winning documentary productions, public art projects, youth media, narrative research training center, and strategic convenings engage hundreds of participants and dozens of communities each year.   

Narrative Arts is dedicated to artistic excellence in pursuit of the proposition that our world is immeasurably enriched when people and cultures tell their own stories and listen to the unique stories of others.  

Learn more about our current and past projects at www.workingnarratives.org

About the NC Local News Lab Fund

The North Carolina Local News Lab Fund is a collaborative fund housed at the North Carolina Community Foundation to support people and organizations working to build a healthier local news and information ecosystem in North Carolina. The Fund was established by a group of local and national funders who believe in the power of local journalism, local stories, and local people to strengthen our democracy. To learn more, visit localnewslab.org or follow @thelocalnewslab.

Narrative Arts’ Free Movement Conference 2018 looked at the local news media ecology.