Op-Eds
When Funders Treat Community as an Afterthought, News Organizations Crumble
April 30, 2025
The collapse of the Houston Landing, a widely discussed, Texas-based nonprofit newsroom that received millions in philanthropic backing, sent shockwaves through the journalism funding world, which has placed enormous hope in the nonprofit model for reviving local news. But it shouldn’t have been a surprise. The Landing was a skyscraper built on sand — designed from the top down, guided by outdated ideas of what a newsroom should be, and disconnected from the very communities it aimed to serve.