By Autumn Labbé-Renault
This was originally published as a column in The Davis Enterprise
It’s been about 18 months since I began developing a vision for a project that would reframe the work of the nonprofit I lead — Davis Media Access — while working towards addressing a growing news and information gap in our community.
The idea grew out of a series of conversations between me, a board member, and a volunteer— all of us journalists — and it centered on a central question: how might our technical infrastructure and expertise, as well as deep community connections, help turn around the decline of locally available civic information?
At the time I drafted a concept paper for the project, we mused “Generally, this would be a new source of community and civic information about Davis/Yolo, drawing on the strengths and needs of people in the community, and available to all. We don't see this as a commercial venture; we do see it as a supplement to existing local sources of information. How this would work or function, or how it would be funded, are questions we hope to answer through our exploration phase.”
Over the past year, I’ve jumped into that exploration feet first, connecting with people and communities who have helped expand the vision. It’s been energizing to hear how many people want more local news, the different ideas they have for making and sharing it, and the resources we might be able to tap into to build a more equitable and accessible media landscape for Yolo County.
To be clear, the work of pivoting an entire organization and launching a bold new project has taken place in the context of running said organization and meeting existing commitments. The backdrop to this work has been an intensive remodel of DMA’s facility at 1623 Fifth St.; ongoing celebration of 20 years of community radio via KDRT; staff transitions; election coverage; a largely new board; year five of a partnership at Woodland Community College, and major work as one of the recipients of the Yolo County Voter Education Grant.
I want to highlight some key accomplishments from our exploration phase and let you know what’s coming next.
* In September 2023, I formally pitched the idea to DMA’s Board of Directors and got buy-in to proceed. By November, we’d determined our process would first center on conducting a robust assessment of information needs, and that my efforts would be focused on building up funding for that.
* Last fall I also launched a series of meetings with nearly 50 community leaders, among them elected officials, nonprofit leaders, teachers, and journalists throughout Yolo County—including the editor of this paper. Although the work and follow-up to these meetings was sometimes challenging to fold into my regular workflow as an ED, it was well worth it. These civic-minded folks not only helped expand the vision and articulate the need for this project, but they also surfaced assumptions and possible stumbling blocks.
* In January of this year, I was tapped to serve as a part of a working group of seven community media leaders under a national initiative called News Futures. Our ongoing task is to build a case for the role noncommercial media centers could play in a revisioned information ecosystem. Working with others who are trying to figure out solutions in their own communities has been both informative and energizing.
* This spring, we came up with a name for what we had been referring to as a “civic information hub” — Yolo Local. The name positions and sums up the effort — a local effort geared at serving the people of Yolo County.
* This spring, I also secured seed funding for the assessment phase from the City of Davis and Yolo County Supervisors Lucas Frerichs and Jim Provenza. I’ve had other funders comment they were impressed that I was able to get monetary support from local electeds, and that was exactly the reasoning behind this: if our local leaders see merit in the project, then others will as well (thank you all!)
* In September, DMA’s Board approved the creation of and charter for Yolo Local Working Group.
I’ve recently been contacted by a few folks who are working towards starting up commercial news efforts. They use words like competition, and I believe more local news and information outlets is a goal. Whatever DMA’s process looks like, I’m confident it will draw on our years of using technology to create connection, build community, and involve a broad swath of stakeholders.
In the coming months, we’ll be working to build out the working group and design the assessment phase, which includes fundraising. For the moment my focus remains on that, and I’m looking forward to seeing what 2025 brings as we start to plan a series of community listening sessions.
— Autumn Labbé-Renault is a journalist, artist and executive director of Davis Media Access. She can be reached at autumn@davismedia.org.