CREATE
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2020 Grants Challenge

Reach Los Angeles

We will provide guidance and support for local media and news organizations by doing the following: optimize local news sites for maximum reach and revenue opportunities, advocate on behalf of Los Angeles’ local-based media in the advertising marketplace and provide ways for local publishers to connect and discuss partnership opportunities and learnings.

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In which areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?

County of Los Angeles

In what stage of innovation is this project?

Pilot project or new program

What is the need you’re responding to?

Currently, there exist no other local media networks in operation for Los Angeles and most local sites are not optimized or are too small to be able to generate income from digital ads if they tried to go about it on their own.

The team at Los Angeleno has been working quietly since our April 2019 launch to partner with local media organizations to start to create a network. In doing so, we have uncovered significant needs that news organizations do not have funds, resources or expertise to address.

These needs are: the distribution of news and critical information locally, optimizing their digital presence and ensuring they can stay in operation.

We want to build further on the start of our local ad network framework to support a healthier ecosystem for local news and media organizations to tap into digital advertising income, among other potential sources.

Why is this project important to the work of your organization?​

We started working on LosAngeleno.com at the end of 2018, when our local media found itself in an especially precarious position: it was unclear what was happening with the rapdily decreasing distribution of entities like LA Weekly and LAist. Moreover, there were very few sites operated locally that were optimized for how we read and share news and local information online.

My background is as a digital-first publisher and my partner comes from an exclusively digital production background for Fortune 500 companies. We have throughout our careers led news sites, built many websites as well as having a thorough understanding of the challenging advertising ecosystem publishers face, especially at the local level, which has seen a mass diversion of financial support to platforms like Google and Facebook.

With Los Angeles having many micro news deserts and our region being geographically large to cover, we recognize the need to partner to make sure Los Angeles-based media can survive.

Approximately how many people will be impacted by this proposal?​

Direct Impact: 20

Indirect Impact: 10,000,000

Please describe the broader impact of your proposal.

The potential impact of this project is massive in ensuring that local news reach as many residents as possible, meaning our citizens are informed. That will guide how they decide to vote, what matters to them, how they can become civically engaged.

Across our network, we will look to reach in some way shape or form all residents in the Greater Los Angeles area.

Please explain how you will define and measure success for your project.

There are a few ways we will be able to measure our success:

1. Participation: Getting more local publishers involved. (# of particpants)

2. Increasing our reach: By optimizing sites, we will look to see an increase overall in digital news readership. (# of pageviews across the network)

3. Revenue: We want to help provide new revenue streams for local publishers so they can keep the lights on. ($ generated that goes directly to funding journalism)

Which of the CREATE metrics will your submission impact?​

Employment in the creative industries

Global cultural and economic influence (“soft power”)

Minority- and women-owned businesses

Are there any other LA2050 goal categories that your proposal will impact?​

LA is the best place to LEARN

LA is the best place to PLAY

LA is the best place to CONNECT

LA is the healthiest place to LIVE

Which of LA2050’s resources will be of the most value to you?​

Access to the LA2050 community

Host public events or gatherings

Communications support

Office space for meetings, events, or for staff

Capacity, including staff

Strategy assistance and implementation