The news Industry has been struggling for quite some time. The financial challenges are not a recent phenomenon. Some financing efforts are on the horizon. A fundraising campaign, NewMatch 2019, announced on October 1 will include the participation of approximately 200 nonprofit newsrooms from across the United States and its initiative is to help local news reporting.

According to the press release, this is considered the largest grassroots fundraising campaign to support nonprofit news organizations.

This national call to action will start on November 1 and conclude on December 31, 2019.

Donations will have a limit of up to $1,000 and be matched with nonprofit news organizations. All of the money donated will go through NewsMatch dot org will be connected directly to participating newsrooms.

The Executive Director and CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit News, Sue Cross said in the press release there was incredible growth of nonprofit newsrooms and their supporters. Cross added that this is inspiring to witness and the idea behind it is for the campaign to help people find and support their trusted local news sources.

This latest effort is important for the news business.

A year ago, a Gallup goal conducted by the Knight foundation confirmed there was a lack of trust and erosion towards the news media.

NewsMatch fundraising totals and background

NewsMatch was officially launched three years ago.

To date, the grassroots one-stop platform has helped raise $14 million. In 2018, NewsMatch assisted a total of 154 newsrooms and raised $7.6 million. These donations came from a coalition of foundations and companies.

It may seem like news organizations are booming because of the technology and all the smartphones in the marketplace.

But the reality is that not all the advertising revenue is flowing through these media entities.

During the duration of the campaign, important news outlets have been consistently covering the growing crisis in local news. Specifically, the three national media brands involved in the coverage are the New York Times, the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.

NewsMatch is supported by the John S. along with the James L. Knight Foundation, Democracy Fund, Facebook Journalism Project, and more.

Trends in local news and industry insights

Not surprisingly, Americans like to get their news online. As reported by the Pew Research Center, in 2018, 34 percent of U.S adults confirmed they preferred getting the news online, which grew from 28 percent in 2016.

The analysis of this report was published on September 11, 2019.

In a survey published by the Pew on September 12, 2019, 71 percent of U.S adults said local news media performs well financially. This same group sampled for the study also alluded to that just 14 percent of Americans have paid for local news in the past year.