It’s widely known that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette got off to a brisk start with its Community Journalism Project, but more than a year into the public fundraising effort, Whispers asked how it is progressing.
The program, which accepts charitable donations to finance the Little Rock newspaper’s local reporting, raised more than $180,000 in the first 100 days after it launched in August 2024. That publicly announced figure far surpassed the paper’s initial goal of $100,000. Stacy Miller, the project’s director of development, reports that the program is expanding to other Wehco Media Inc. papers across the state.
“We are indeed still growing our philanthropy,” Miller told Arkansas Business on Oct. 23. “As of today, we have raised a total of $308,696 for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Community Journalism Project.”
The money goes to combat the daily newspaper industry’s long-term trend of newsroom staff reductions, and funds local journalism and new positions for specialized coverage. Donors get no influence on coverage and no extra access to reporters or editors, the paper has said. So far this year, donors have contributed $104,170.
Wehco has also launched funds for the following papers, Miller said: the Texarkana Gazette, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Camden News, the Magnolia Banner News and the El Dorado News-Times.
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