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The Henrico Citizen today was selected as one of three Virginia publications and 144 nationwide to receive a grant from the Facebook Journalism Project’s COVID-19 Local News Relief Fund Grant Program.
The grant is designed to allow local publishers the opportunity to more thoroughly cover the impact the pandemic has had within the communities they serve and to help them offset some revenue shortfalls in order to maintain long-term sustainable initiatives that ideally will continue beyond the terms of the grant.
“We are incredibly humbled, honored and excited to have been included as part of this effort,” Citizen owner and publisher Tom Lappas said. “I’m grateful to Facebook, the Local Media Association, the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Local Independent Online News Publishers and the other partners who thought enough of our grant proposal to provide us with an opportunity to dramatically enhance the way we cover Henrico County in the months ahead.”
Facebook and its partners received more than 2,000 grant applications from publications in every state and Washington, D.C.
"We're proud to support this diverse group of publishers — many of which are family- or independently owned," said Campbell Brown, vice president of global news partnerships at Facebook. “Not only are these journalists working tirelessly to serve people right now — they're focused on transformation, building innovative local news businesses that can continue to serve communities beyond the current pandemic.”
Nearly four of five grant recipients are family or independently owned (as the Citizen is), according to Facebook.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role local news plays in our communities, while simultaneously threatening their very existence,” said Jonathan Kealing, the chief network officer for the Institute for Nonprofit News, one of the entities that assisted Facebook in selecting grant recipients. “Reviewing hundreds of applications on a tight timeline both illustrated the depth of need, but also highlighted the innovation that these small, independent publishers can provide for their communities when given the resources.
“I’m excited to see new news products and more critical original reporting in these communities, thanks to Facebook’s support.”
The Citizen will provide more information about some of its plans for the grant in the coming days and weeks.
