It’s time for civic media

It’s time for
civic media!

What does it take to make news that doesn’t
just inform, but helps people transform their communities?


In a new collaboration between The Objective and News Futures, 14 practitioners share their perspectives on building local, participatory, and durable information systems over the next decade.

Read our 2025 editor’s note.

From the series
An array of people of different races and age groups sit around tables checking their phones and chatting. The background is adorned in a light blue overlay with icons outlined in light orange, which include thought bubbles with lightbulbs and speech bubbles with a magazine.
The local news contract is broken. Civic media can fix it
December 19, 2025
A brunette white man in a suit, Mike Rispoli, faces toward a microphone to testify. The statehouse is also filled with several other people listening. A light blue overlay surrounds the background and icons outlined in light orange are among the people, including a speech bubble with a dollar sign coming out of Rispoli's mouth, a lightbulb, and an arrow above a rising graph.
Media policy: Local news for the people
December 17, 2025
A photo of the Minnesota Public Radio building overlaid with light blue and iconography outlined in orange, including a radio tower, two radio hosts in front of a microphone, and a loudspeaker.
To save the free press, newsgathering must be reclaimed as a public trust
December 15, 2025
Thinking beyond ‘DEI’ to make equitable media
December 8, 2025
Libraries are a locus for civic change
December 5, 2025
Students plugging local news gaps isn’t sustainable for students, communities, or journalism
December 3, 2025
Looking to earth and ecology to revive local news
November 24, 2025
A letter from the Civic Media Magazine editors
November 4, 2025
To promote civic information, we need to measure it
December 19, 2024
Divest from the ‘news desert’ framework — grow information gardens
January 25, 2024
We need a media ecosystem that urges justice
December 13, 2023
Local news must help build a civic life worth participating in
December 5, 2023
Native peoples must be part of an emergent media collective
November 30, 2023

Many thanks to our authors: Andrea D. Wenzel, Antoine Haywood, Ayinde Merrill, Carla Murphy, Cierra Brown Hinton, Darryl Holliday, Jennie Rose Halperin, Jennifer Brandel, Jesse Hardman, Jodi Rave Spotted Bear, Kang-Xing Jin, Michael Swerdlow, Mike Rispoli, Richard Young.

Interested in getting a bulk order of magazines for your non-profit or classroom? Let us know!

This series was generously supported by:

The Reynolds Journalism Institute

Free Press · The Institute for Nonprofit News · Online News Association
City Bureau · The MacArthur Foundation