OU Daily was one of 12 media organizations across the state — and Oklahoma’s only college media outlet — named Friday to participate in a groundbreaking project to cultivate trust in local journalism.
The Oklahoma Media Center’s Ecosystem Engagement Fund will distribute $100,000 from the Inasmuch Foundation to help state news organizations undertake projects that boost the sustainability of local journalism.
The other organizations selected were:
“We will share our findings far and wide, as we believe this project is replicable in other states,” said Rob Collins, executive director of OMC. “Locally, we’re looking for funding partners to collaborate and further support each OMC member’s civic-minded engagement. The goal is to bring Oklahomans together through decency for democracy.”
The Daily is slated to received $8,300 to help expand its engagement desk operations, analyze source diversity while transforming social media strategies, host local listening sessions to build on readership survey data, conduct scientific polling and bring those discoveries to its audience, update staff bios to include personal mission statements and lean more heavily into preparations for OU’s Giving Day in April.
“This grant will allow us to more deeply think about how we engage with and serve our audiences, both on campus and in Norman, said Karoline Leonard, the Daily’s editor-in-chief. “Our project will help OU Daily become an even more prominent local news organization in the city and better tell the stories of both OU and the city of Norman.”
The ecosystem project is shaped by two phases of study funded by the Kirkpatrick Foundation in Oklahoma City, according to Oklahoma Media Center’s announcement unveiling the initiative.
First, Oklahoma City-based Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates polled 500 registered voters last December. The group’s work, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3%, found that 66% of those polled saw bias as a major problem in Oklahoma media’s reporting. The group also found that local media is more trusted than non-local media, that 75% of respondents would trust news outlets more if journalists were transparent and prominently acknowledged mistakes and that 56% said they would more likely trust an outlet recommended by friends.
Second, Allyson Shortle, an OU associate professor of political science, and Rosemary Avance, an Oklahoma State assistant professor of media and strategic communications, built on that polling by conducting a listening project in rural news deserts and underserved communities. They sought to learn where local residents get news, what they trust and how they stay informed in their communities.
“Oklahomans’ reliance on traditional news coverage is shifting,” Avance and Shortle wrote in their findings. “Not only do Oklahomans across counties rarely subscribe to local newspapers, but they also report accessing a variety of types of news from various sources for free on social media. Few are interested in subscriptions to any news source, let alone local sources. The types of local news they tend to see are bound by social media algorithms as well as the echo chambers of their own online social ties.”
According to the study, small-town residents trust local news more when a local person is in charge of it.
“Respondents value free, accessible news and want to access it via social media,” Avance and Shortle wrote. “For the most part, they will not pay for access, especially in the form of a subscription.”
The Daily’s student-controlled editorial independence is enshrined in a charter approved OU’s Board of Regents specifically to “fulfill the historic check and balance role a newspaper plays in government and society.” Its editors applied for OMC grant funding under the belief their work uniquely fits the criteria of what news consumers consistently demonstrate they want, as well as what they told researchers they expect, in today’s media landscape. Specifically, for more than a century, the Daily has served Norman with:
The largest newsgathering staff in Oklahoma’s third-largest city.
Free daily journalism online and premium print products all year.
Professionals with 75 years of experience advising students largely drawn from one of the nation’s top journalism colleges, Gaylord College.
A legacy as an experimental launching pad for media professionals.
On a five-year average, the Daily’s work has reached an average of 60,000 unique visitors per week, and eclipsed 125,000 page views per week, in a city of approximately 129,000 people. The Daily’s social media audience — across Facebook, Twitter/X, Threads, TikTok and YouTube — exceeds 109,000 followers. Furthermore, in a community readership study conducted in the spring, the Daily found that 70% of its audience is 25 or older, with one-third of respondents engaging with the Daily’s work several times a week and more than half engaging several times a month. Fewer than 6% cited bias concerns as a factor if they did not engage with the Daily’s work.
Shortle and Avance offered three recommendations to Oklahoma journalists: Commit to ongoing local investments; continually communicate the importance of civic engagement, local politics and journalistic reporting to populations at risk of disengagement from local news; and shift news models to prioritize social media.
More than 50 journalists representing 30 media outlets attended a day-long training session in September at Gaylord College led by Joy Mayer, founder and director of Trusting News, to discuss the engagement study and develop initial strategies that could inform grant applications that were due in October. The 12 grant recipients named Friday will now engage with Mayer in a series of training sessions in addition to one-on-one coaching through the end of March, when the projects must be completed.
“I’m excited by the chance to help newsrooms act on the research OMC has invested in,” Mayer said. “The newsrooms’ projects are ambitious and important, and they have the potential to make a real difference in the relationships these journalists have with the communities they aim to serve.”
The Daily, which operates as the flagship product of OU Student Media, produces news 24/7 online and in premium print products available in approximately 50 locations around Norman year-round. It is among the most acclaimed student-run enterprises in college media, including being named a finalist for or winner of the College Media Association’s 4-year outlet of the year honor six times in the past seven years. In 2022, in competition against the state’s professionals, the Daily won the Oklahoma Society of Professional Journalists’ top overall honor, the Carter Bradley First Amendment Award, for work that aimed to reset norms around transparency at OU and in Norman.
Oklahoma Media Center supports and strengthens Oklahoma’s journalism ecosystem and spurs innovation through statewide collaboration that benefits diverse audiences. A nonpartisan 501(c)(3), OMC includes more than 25 news outlets statewide, ranging from broadcast to nonprofit to Indigenous and Black-owned media outlets to longstanding newspapers.
Here are the other organizations’ projects, per OMC’s news release:
The Enid News & Eagle, cultivating community resources to spread news via social media and local contributors providing targeted content, communicating the newspaper’s value, employing a project manager to reach various ethnic and socioeconomic groups for information and training and implementing a plan for providing local content for publication.
The Frontier, implementing community partnerships, including local libraries and a local bookstore, to host legislative forums to help the nonprofit newsroom connect with an expanded audience and the launching of a new SMS (Short Messaging Service) club.
KGOU/Oklahoma Watch, scheduling and implementation of a series of community listening events to gain feedback about needs in those communities and to educate participants about the importance and practices of journalism at multiple listening sessions.
KOSU, creating a community advisory board to better inform coverage of Oklahoma’s diverse communities and feature members from diverse backgrounds to serve as a bridge between the communities KOSU serves and the newsroom.
The Lawton Constitution, conducting a readership survey in mid-January by hiring students to conduct research and tabulate the results and then adjust newsroom coverage based on the findings.
NonDoc, launching the new News Ambassadors program in early 2024 as an effort to rebuild trust in local news by connecting more people in more communities with key coverage of the Oklahoma State Capitol and other civic matters.
The Oklahoma Press Association, selecting two newspapers and measuring, tabulating and categorizing news coverage of the previous year, surveying readers to gather feedback on desired news coverage and developing a news coverage improvement plan for the coming year. Then regularly monitoring, tabulating and reporting to selected newspapers on progress toward news coverage plan.
The Oklahoma Eagle, polling to determine readership, engaging in social media, launching an SMS service to correspond directly with readers, participating more actively in community conversations, providing free copies to Black churches and other outlets and partnering with some community groups and individual influencers.
The Oklahoman, using its rebranded opinion section, now called Viewpoints, to amplify community voices in Oklahoma’s historic all-Black towns and drive conversations that prompt better outcomes for residents, listening to the concerns of the target audience and sharing their stories in written commentary, video and audio clips.
VNN (Verified News Network), creating and testing a Citizen Journalism Program developed specifically for underserved communities.
Disclosure: Mayer (class of 1996) and Collins (class of 1993) are Daily alumni.
About OU Student Media
OU Student Media is the steward of the OU Daily, which for more than a century has served Norman with free independent local journalism, the city's largest reporting staff and nationally honored coverage while launching the careers of media professionals. OU Daily produces news 24/7 online and in premium print products available in approximately 50 locations around Norman year-round.
