Bridging the news gap
DMA’s Yolo Local partners with KVIE; Also, news on a shoe store, two delis, a new tax service and Ficelle
If you haven’t been reading KVIE’s Abridged newsletter, you’re missing out. In September, the local PBS station launched the weekday email newsletter, with interesting and investigative stories from the Sacramento region. It also has weekly newsletters specializing in Yolo County, one on food and drink, and another on music and art events in the area. And it’s all free.
Several of the staff members and contributors are Sacramento Bee alums, including my friend Chris Macias, who writes the Cultural Capital weekly newsletter, and Benjy Egel, who grew up in Davis and does the City of Treats email. There are a couple of former Capital Public Radio staffers too, and an ex-Davis Enterprise reporter, Felicia Alvarez.
For its Yolo County piece, Abridged partnered with Yolo Local, the Davis Media Access project that recently assessed our county’s “information ecosystem” to see how best to inform residents about news. Yolo Local was formed as area newsroom cuts leave many important stories untold.
DMA Executive Director Autumn Labbé-Renault said the partnership takes what they learned from Yolo Local’s survey of area residents, and applies it to Abridged’s editorial framework. “In a world where big media is failing to provide information that contributes to the health of our communities, and media at all levels is under duress, we’ve come together with KVIE/Abridged as partners committed in service to Yolo County.”
She said KVIE approached DMA because “they recognize DMA and its projects are already a good source of civic information – both in what we produce, and the amount of news that gets funneled our way,” she said, noting “they also understand our key finding about the need for Spanish-speaking news and information, and are very interested in moving in that direction.”
Read the Abridged story about this partnership here.