Press Forward awards infrastructure funding to two public broadcasters

Two public broadcasters are among the recipients of Press Forward’s latest funding round of $22.7 million.

Press Forward, a nationwide coalition to fund local news, awarded Rocky Mountain Community Radio $1 million to create a shared broadcast engineering team for its 21 community radio stations in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. 

The pilot project will use the funds to hire staff engineers to work among the stations and an administrator to coordinate their work and oversee the program, according to an RMCR press release. It will also create an “equipment pool for emergency repairs in the event of equipment failure,” according to the release.

“Partnerships will strengthen talent development and career pathways through apprenticeship and station staff training to support the next generation of broadcast engineers,” the release said.

“This engineering initiative aims to celebrate a collective approach to a critical problem, which will increase our engineering capacity, grow each member station’s ability to resolve technical problems efficiently, and reduce deferred maintenance and broadcast interruptions,” RMCR President Breeze Richardson said in the release.

In addition, High Plains Public Radio will use a $750,000 award to launch a multistate media network. High Plains Civic Media Network will support regional news in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado.

“The media network will build a contributors network of community correspondents, topical experts, regional curators, regional reporters and public media partners, coordinated by a central editorial team,” according to a Wednesday Press Forward announcement. “The initiative aspires to meet a wide range of rural audience information needs, interests, and perspectives and act as a scalable model for other rural areas.”

Press Forward announced the grants as part of a funding round supporting 22 projects to bolster local news infrastructure. The grants are part of the coalition’s overall goal to invest $500 million in local news. 

In October, nine public broadcasters received $100,000 grants to help close news coverage gaps.