As 2023 comes to a close, I join many news consumers in feeling anxiety and stress about the state of affairs at home and abroad. Yet there is always reason for hearts and minds to fill with hope and opportunity with the advent of a new year.
While I remain a daily reader of the best national newspapers and magazines, despite the avalanche of grim tidings, I also start each morning perusing local news sites that keep me connected to the community, the neighborhoods and the many people and organizations making San Antonio go and grow.
I’ve enjoyed this past year spending time each week with an important or interesting San Antonian on my podcast, bigcitysmalltown, which I invite you to listen to if you are not yet doing so. There are so many wonderful, passionate and dedicated people in our city, and listening to them and their respective visions for building a better city will help restore your faith in humanity, right here at home.
More than 12 years after retiring as editor of the San Antonio Express-News, I still am a daily reader of the digital edition. I read with much nostalgia Nancy M. Preyor-Johnson’s column published last week that celebrated four of the daily’s stellar photojournalists who have accepted buyouts and are leaving. The newspaper has always had a super talented team of photographers, and in my years at the helm there, many of them readily accepted assignments to war zones and other places that involved considerable risk. Their work will be missed.
I read the nonprofit San Antonio Report first each morning (unless you count my daily addiction to Wordle in The New York Times), and while my retirement from the leadership there in 2021 means I no longer am involved in management, fundraising or news decisions, I care a great deal about the publication as it nears its 12th anniversary, and the talented staff members there who deliver a community service far greater than their numbers suggest.
Leading a nonprofit of any kind is not for the weak of heart. As economies experience cycles of growth and retraction, nonprofits bob along the surface like small ships in a crowded sea, one moment experiencing smooth sailing, the next stormy conditions. I am glad to be out of the fundraising business, which never came naturally to me, but I maintain a full appreciation of the challenge.
Many everyday readers assume that fundraising takes care of itself, that the city’s major employers, the billionaires, family charitable foundations and others with deep pockets keep the Report thriving. While it’s true that the list of donors does include many of the city’s most prominent and generous individuals and entities, it’s also true that some come and go. They might be offended by one of my columns or an issue covered by the Report in a fashion not to their liking, or they might alter their funding priorities.
I used to say that the Report counted its supporters one at a time. Every contributing member, even those who give $25 a year, mattered. One day, they might become $100 donors, and $100 donors might become $1,000 donors. We always strived to appeal to young adults and serve every generation, each with its own capacity to give. Nonprofit news sites count as much on individual donations as they do the big givers. The smaller ones add up, and they represent broad community support, vital to the longevity of the organization.
The San Antonio Report is now a bit more than halfway through its year-end fundraising drive in search of $100,000 worth of new donors or increased donations from existing members. This is where you come in. The end of the year is when many individuals, families and small businesses think about acts of generosity. I ask that you consider the San Antonio Report in your giving, and that you give all you can afford to give. San Antonio is one of the fastest-growing U.S. metro areas, yet it now counts far fewer working journalists than it did, say, before the Great Recession.
The daily newspaper in San Antonio, and in virtually every other major U.S. city, employs a fraction of journalists compared to 15 years ago. Many surrounding communities have seen their small dailies and weeklies close, creating news deserts.
Small, dedicated nonprofit news sites have become a vital part of the equation. There weren’t very many of them when my wife, Monika Maeckle, and I first planned the launch of the Rivard Report in 2011, which eventually grew into the San Antonio Report. Today more than 425 nonprofit members belong to the national Institute for Nonprofit News. These entities cannot replace the tens of thousands of journalism jobs lost since the advent of the internet, but the role they play is an important one.
They can’t do it without you and me. I hope you agree and will do your small part to help the Report team meet their year-end goal and greet 2024 with the strength, energy and renewed commitment that comes when you know the whole city has your back.
Click here to make a difference.
