FJP Community Network Grant Winner: CatchLight

Involve San Francisco residents in the creation of visual content for local newsrooms that gives local context to important community issues.

$25,000

The CatchLight Local Visual Storytelling Initiative supports local news organizations and community-based visual journalists working together to create visual stories that address important issues in a local context. Thanks to the seed support of the Kresge Foundation and additional support from the GroundTruth project and local newsrooms, CatchLight Local focuses on the issue of economic inequality in the Bay Area.

Here’s how it works: Visual journalists are paired with local newsrooms. The visual journalists bring their work and process directly to the community through “town hall” events. They also bring the community back into the newsroom through workshops, photo walks, and presentations or other forms of public and digital engagements. Catchlight offers editing, web, social media and engagement production support and training to enhance the know-how of visual storytelling within local newsrooms.

The initiative's long-term goal is to transform the local news landscape with new community-based visual practices. It impacts stakeholders differently: For members of the public, it promotes a more nuanced and complex understanding of their community and how it is represented in local media. For visual storytellers, it provides support and ultimately elevates their craft and careers through editing and amplification of their work. And for the media, it provides visual tools that better articulate the issues at stake and provide new avenues for community engagement, improving the quality and sustainability of the outlet. Finally, a central component of this initiative is to build relationships and direct links between news media organizations and the communities they serve.

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