Center for Cooperative Media

We're 10 years old! Help make sure we can support journalism in New Jersey and collaboration around the world for the next 10 years.

Your gift will directly support the operations of the Center, enabling us to share vital information, research, resources and products to help sustain the future of local news and information.

What we do: 

The mission of the Center for Cooperative Media is to grow and strengthen local journalism and support an informed society in New Jersey and beyond.

The Center was founded in 2012 in response to the downsizing of New Jersey news organizations and the changes in the ownership of regional public media. These shifts in the news and information landscape hurt the volume of local news available in a state that has historically had limited news coverage, due to its proximity to the major metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia. With 564 municipalities packed into a densely populated state, New Jersey was—and is—ripe for innovation in local journalism.

The Center coordinates statewide and regional reporting, connecting more than 300 local news and information providers through its flagship project, the NJ News Commons. The Commons helps partners to share content and encourages them to collaborate and to support one another. The Center also conducts and publishes research on emerging ideas and best practices, focusing on local journalism, business models, and ecosystem mapping. 

The Center studies and advocates for collaborative journalism, including hosting an annual national summit for journalism organizations to foster the conditions, ideas, and practices that lead to stronger journalism across the U.S.  

Our work also includes:

• Coordinating statewide and regional reporting projects, such as Stories of Atlantic City, Voting Block, the Diverse Source Database and Loved and Lost. 
• Offering awards and stipends to support collaborative projects and peer-to-peer learning through programs like the South Jersey Information Equity Project, Stories Invincible and previously the Peer Learning + Collaboration Fund.
• Supporting community, ethnic and immigrant media through programs such as NJ Media Counts and COVID-19 fellowships.
• Hosting monthly press briefings with newsmakers. 
• Providing emotional and professional support to local journalists across the state. 
• Publishing a daily newsletter amplifying the day’s top news stories as reported by our New Jersey news partners. 
• Writing about what’s happening in our news ecosystem and across the industry through a twice-monthly global collaborative journalism newsletter and biweekly Newsroom Digest about the media ecosystem in New Jersey. 
• Researching issues related to New Jersey’s local news and information ecosystem and collaborative journalism.
• Hosting the world’s only conference dedicated entirely to studying collaborative journalism. The 2022 Collaborative Journalism Summit conference was hosted May 19-20 in Chicago. 

We rely on the generous support of our funders to fulfill our mission. Please help us ensure local news and information survives by supporting the work we do.

Contact us to learn more: http://centerforcooperativemedia.org or send us an email at info@centerforcooperativemedia.org