WHO WE ARE

OUR MISSION

The Four Corners Journalism Fund (FCJF) exists to strengthen civic journalism across the Four Corners region by connecting community donors who have a passion for journalism with impactful, under-reported stories. The Fund will finance high-value local journalism that our current business model does not support – focusing on public-interest beats such as education, energy, rural affairs, Indigenous issues, technology, outdoor recreation, and more. This initiative treats community news as a public service, ensuring important stories are told.

The Fund supports journalism at Ballantine Communications, based in Durango, CO and is managed by the Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado. The company covers journalism in the southwest with three regional news media outlets: The Durango Herald, The Cortez Journal, and The Tri-City Record.

OUR VISION

To build a sustainable, community-backed funding model for local news – expanding coverage, public trust, and civic engagement while maintaining full editorial independence. In the long term, philanthropic support will become a “third revenue stream” alongside advertising and subscriptions, helping secure the future of quality journalism in our region without compromising our journalistic values.

OUR HISTORY

FCJF was founded in 2025 in cooperation with Ballantine Communications and the Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado.

OUR APPROACH

Hiring Journalists Based on industry benchmarks, a full-time reporter (with salary, benefits, and necessary resources) costs on the order of $60,000–$120,000 per year. In our region and staffing plan, we estimate roughly $70,000/year per journalist as a sustainable figure. This covers a competitive salary to attract talent, plus benefits (health insurance, etc.), equipment, travel, training, and editorial support. We want these funded beats to be truly additional capacity – not stretching our existing staff thin – so we account for the full cost of doing quality journalism.

Three-Year Pledges: We encourage donors to make a 3-year pledge if possible. Long-term commitments allow us to confidently hire excellent journalists on a multi-year basis. Investigative and enterprise reporting often takes many months to produce tangible results, so a multi-year horizon is key. Other successful programs have shown the value of this approach: for example, The Times-Picayune/The Advocate in Louisiana raised $1.5 million to fund 4 investigative positions over 3 years (about $125K per journalist per year), and The Seattle Times secured $1 million to fund 3 new local reporters for three years. Those initiatives demonstrate that donor-funded journalism works best as a sustained investment, not a one-off grant. By similarly planning in three-year cycles, we can evaluate impact and adjust or expand as needed after that period.

Fundraising Goals:

Our initial goal is to raise approximately $630,000 in pledged support, which would fund three journalists over three years. This pilot (2025–2028) would demonstrate the impact of philanthropic journalism in the Four Corners. Of course, if we raise more, we can do more – add additional beats or extend the funding period. We will scale our hiring plans to match the funds available, starting with the highest-priority beats that donors and editors mutually identify. Ultimately, our vision is an ongoing fund that continuously supports local journalism for years to come, possibly growing to add even more reporting capacity as community support grows.

Editorial Independence & Ethics

Absolute Editorial Independence: Any journalism produced with Fund support will adhere to strict editorial independence. Donors will have no influence over content decisions, story selection, or reporter assignments beyond specifying the general beat or topic they wish to support. The newsroom’s editors and reporters retain full editorial control over what stories are pursued and how they are covered. Funders do not get advance access to stories, and they will never dictate angles or outcomes. This principle is non-negotiable – maintaining the trust of our readers and the integrity of our coverage is paramount. As the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s similar project states, the news staff operates independently of donors and funders have no special access to the newsroom. We will mirror that commitment.

Donors will be asked to sign an agreement acknowledging they understand these boundaries. This model has worked successfully elsewhere – other newspapers with donor funds have maintained rigorous independence and still produced hard-hitting reporting on topics even if funded by interested parties (for instance, investigative funds at other papers have broken stories holding local power brokers accountable, with no interference from funders.

Inspiration/Proven Models

Our approach is inspired by successful initiatives at newspapers like The Seattle Times (which added over 20 newsroom positions with community funding), The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC, which raised over $1 million for investigative journalism), The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (which raised hundreds of thousands in its first year for statewide reporting), and The Times-Picayune/TheAdvocate (New Orleans, which partnered with a foundation and secured major gifts like a $1 million Ford Foundation grant). These cases show that communities will rally to support quality local journalism. Now it’s our turn to build a similar legacy of community-backed reporting in the Four Corners.