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CatchLight Addresses Visual Journalism’s National Decline & Local Revival … Event: Thursday, December 3, 2020 CatchLight Local: New Model for Sustainable Visual Journalism Presented by CatchLight and INN
Photo by Max Herman
“Image deserts are becoming prevalent in most communities where news deserts have formed, affecting not just our understanding of our communities today, but for future generations.” – Elodie Mailliet Storm, CEO, CatchLight –
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, November 11, 2020 – Following the award-winning 2019 CatchLight Local San Francisco Bay Area pilot program and the 2020 launch of the
Chicago program, CatchLight, a visual-first media organization, in partnership with the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), will convene for the program’s premiere virtual event on Thursday, December 3, 2020, to discuss new models of collaborative sustainability for visual journalism.
“Communication has never been more visual with hundreds of millions of images being created every day. Yet, we are facing a crisis of high-quality, consistent, and representative visual storytelling. Currently, image deserts are becoming prevalent in most communities where news deserts have formed, affecting not just our understanding of our communities today, but for future generations,” Elodie Mailliet Storm, CEO, CatchLight.
For nearly a decade, the collapse of trustworthy, local journalism has been a detriment to our democracy and our society. What is less often recognized is the even more pronounced decline of photojournalism. According to ASNE Census data, visual departments have been hit harder than any other part of local and national newsrooms. Visual journalists have declined by 52%, more than any other part of the newsroom staff in the last 20 years.
Undeniably visuals are ingrained in our collective memories as they humanize and contextualize larger stories, often driving the media news cycles. Consider the now famous image, “Crying Girl on the Border” (2018), captured by Getty Images photographer John Moore, which circulated worldwide and ignited a global focus on US immigration policies. However, only a small percent of the financial funding in the journalism sector and philanthropic support of journalism is allocated to visual journalism.
In response to this expanding national issue, CatchLight launched CatchLight Local in 2019 as a philanthropic initiative to revive visual journalism at the local level, and to support professional visual journalists and storytellers, including photographers, multimedia producers and graphic designers, working in under-represented communities, by directly connecting them with local newsrooms and community members.
Working with participating newsrooms, CatchLight Local hires local visual journalists, through an application-based process, to provide inclusive, in-depth, accurate, and locally contextualized information to the public. Creating content customized for individual newsroom partners and local contexts, CatchLight Local Visual Storytelling Fellows engage communities in conversations that address issues of local importance and work with the local newsroom program partners to establish vital common ground for media representation of diverse insights.
“Images have the power to connect audiences directly to issues, create a common ground for dialogue, and promote greater community and civic engagement and trust. When images are created by local visual journalists, they allow communities to see themselves and the issues critical to their lives represented with significance and with a more profound level of understanding,” states Mailliet Storm, of CatchLight.
Successfully completing a pilot in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2019 clearly demonstrated that access to locally sourced visual journalism changed the relationships between participating newsrooms and their constituent communities. This year, the organization has launched their second CatchLight Local program in Chicago, and has announced a 10-year goal to provide a dozen communities in the United States with high- quality newsroom visual representation, an investment representing $7 million. However, measuring sustainability and scaling the program in its current locations continues to be at the forefront of the initiative. Through a partnership with Google News Consumer Insights, CatchLight Local will share with partner newsrooms the data analysis on content and visual best practices for increased engagement and reader loyalty.
“Our role as visual journalists is to document the issues without dehumanizing people and their stories. Photographers have an opportunity to include and engage with the communities they are reporting in – not just on a local level but on a national and international level. Photography is the bridge between local and global conversations like housing. It can be used as a tool to show the facts in creative ways, and also convey the emotion behind them.” – Sebastian Hidalgo, CatchLight Local Visual Storytelling Fellow, 2019 –
On Thursday, December 3, 2020, CatchLight Local: New Model for Sustainable Visual Journalism, hosted by CatchLight and INN, will bring together collaborative partners from the Bay Area and Chicago to discuss visual journalism’s national decline, the demonstrated effectiveness of CatchLight Local’s new model and to explore the question: How do we ensure communities, urban and rural, see themselves represented accurately through the media?
Featuring CatchLight CEO Elodie Mailliet Storm, INN Chief Network Officer Jonathan Kealing, and reporter at Visalia Times-Delta, Sheyanne Romero, as well as Bay Area CatchLight Local Fellows David Rodriguez and Sebastian Hidalgo, plus an introduction to the first cohort of Chicago-based CatchLight Local Fellows, Max Herman, April Alonso, Devon Clark, Samantha Cabrera Friend, and Brian Herrera. The announcement of the CatchLight Local Visual Storytelling Fellows, also marks the launch of the CatchLight Local Chicago virtual “visual desk.”
Visual journalism is about creating content through nuanced representation to better understand a certain situation. In the late 1930s, under the leadership of Roy Stryker, the historical section of the Farm Security Administration undertook the task of documenting farmers and their lives in America’s Dust Bowl following the Great Recession. According to historical accounts, Stryker had “long been convinced of the value of photography as a means of illustrating economic issues.” Working with more than 40 photographers over a period of 8 years, among them Dorthea Lang, Walker Evans and Gordon Parks, Stryker compiled more than 10,000 photographs that raised public and political awareness of farmer’s hardships, and to this day many of these images are still ingrained as part of our nation’s collective visual memories.
“So often visuals are an after-thought in the reporting process. The CatchLight Local visual desk is unique in that it puts visuals at the center. Resourcing and supporting visuals as an integral part of the reporting process, ultimately changes how we understand, represent, and articulate local issues,” Max Herman, Visual Storytelling Fellow, CatchLight Local Chicago.
The virtual “visual desk” will serve INN members and CatchLight Local Chicago newsroom partners, Better Government Association, Block Club Chicago, Borderless Magazine, and ProPublica Illinois. Editorial oversight will be provided by CatchLight, INN and an editorial steering committee of the local newsroom partners. Through this collaborative effort, Fellows will be supported in creative direction, visual editing, and community relations.
“Having access to visual journalism changes the relationship between a newsroom and a constituent community. Our hope is by not just talking about communities, but by being more conscious of who and how we’re visually illustrating communities, that journalism shifts towards more equitable representation,” said Jonathan Kealing, Chief Network Officer at INN.
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Event: CatchLight Local: New Model for Sustainable Visual Journalism When: Thursday, December 3, 2020 Time: 1pm-2:30pm PST URL: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dqCOVsNZT7Os57xn0QqGnw
CatchLight Local Chicago (2020) focuses on harnessing the power of visuals to better understand how the unprecedented COVID-19 health crisis has exacerbated existing
inequality in Chicago, as well as looking at the long-term impact on vulnerable communities and what local solutions may emerge.
CatchLight Local San Francisco Bay Area (2019) focuses on amplifying the voices and stories of populations experiencing structural and economic inequality, through community engagement and the use of an inclusive reporting process, to produce visual stories around economic inequality in the Bay Area. Partner newsrooms include San Francisco Public Press, Bay City News, and The Salinas Californian.
For more information on CatchLight Local visit: catchlight.io/local ###
Thanks to the support of the McCormick Foundation and the Kresge Foundation, CatchLight and INN are working to reseed visual storytelling at the local level in Chicago, allowing communities to see themselves represented in a more accurate and nuanced way, and improving civic engagement.
CatchLight is a San Francisco Bay Area-based nonprofit that believes in the power of visual storytelling to foster a more nuanced and empathetic understanding of the world. CatchLight serves as a transformational force, urgently bringing resources and organizations together to support leaders in a thriving visual ecosystem. Our goal is to discover, develop and amplify visual storytellers. www.catchlight.io
Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) strengthens and supports more than 250 independent news organizations in a new kind of media network: nonprofit, nonpartisan, and dedicated to public service. The INN community shares best practices, collaborates on stories, pools resources, and receives cutting-edge training in professional, organizational, and business development. inn.org
CatchLight Local Chicago Editorial Steering Committee:
The Better Government Association is a non-partisan, nonprofit news organization working for transparency, efficiency, and accountability in government in Chicago and across Illinois.
Block Club Chicago is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to delivering reliable, nonpartisan, and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods.
Borderless Magazine NFP is a nonprofit news outlet that is reimagining immigration journalism for a more just and equitable future. We humanize stories of immigration by shining light on the diversity, resilience and resistance of people impacted by immigration policies today.
ProPublica Illinois is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. Headquartered in Chicago, we are the first regional publishing operation of ProPublica, dedicated to stories about big issues that affect people living and working in the state of Illinois.
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