The New Mexico Local News Fund supports independent publishers in New Mexico through a variety of initiatives aimed at supporting the local news ecosystem. Executive Director Rashad Mahmood sits down to chat and tell us how.
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RSSRashad Mahmood is the Executive Director of The New Mexico Local News Fund, an organization that works with both existing newsrooms and trusted community organizations in New Mexico with the goal of providing access to local news and information for the state’s residents.
The organization takes a news ecosystem based approach to helping local publishers in the state. This means that instead of looking for individual outlets to support, they instead focus on whole news information systems.
The New Mexico Local News Fund accomplishes this goal in a number of ways. They have an accelerator program that offers financial support and one on one coaching for local newsrooms. They have a fellowship program that helps news orgs offer a competitive salary to journalists. They also help small publishers across the state discover and secure grant funding.
On this week’s episode of Small Press, Big Ideas, I talked with Rashad about all of this and more. We also discussed his personal history in journalism and how he came to be the Executive Director of this great organization.
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