Press Forward has made a $50,000 donation to support The Mānoa Mirror, a novel student-driven and community-centered online newsroom at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Press Forward is a national initiative that aims to address long standing inequalities in journalism coverage and practice in the U.S. by supporting small, local newsrooms that provide original reporting in underserved communities.
The Mānoa Mirror will use the $50,000 to hire its first paid student and professional staff members. Prior to this, all the contributions to The Mirror have been voluntary student work, supported by UH Journalism professors.
“Support for The Mirror signifies our belief that college news services can provide a vital source of information for communities,” said Marika Lynch, a spokesperson for Press Forward. “We’ve seen this across the country. In areas rural and urban, where few news sources exist, colleges and universities can play an essential role in meeting local information needs. We’re thrilled the Mānoa Mirror can help fulfill this role in Hawai’i.”
Founded in 2023 within the UH Journalism program, The Mirror aims to teach Journalism students how to create useful local journalism within real contexts, working on real stories for a real audience. The program enables students to write about a variety of stories that before The Mirror likely would have gone untold and collaborate with professional media organizations to enhance the quality of local news coverage.
“The rapid loss of local media sources in the United States is a huge threat to democracy,” said Hye-ryeon Lee, chair of the School of Communication and Information, which houses the Journalism program. “The award from Press Forward will strengthen The Mānoa Mirror so that we can better contribute to expanding the news ecosystem in Hawai‘i and also serve as an important resource to train our students to become conscientious and trustworthy journalists necessary for democracy,”
For instance, through UH Beat, a special series published with support by the nonprofit news organization Civil Beat, students produced more than 100 stories as a part of a semester-long course, including several award-winning reports.
The Mirror also is committed to writing and producing high-quality stories by young adults for young adults, one of the reasons Press Forward selected it as a grantee.
“We were excited by The Mirror’s emphasis on providing news about native communities, with stories geared towards a younger generation of news consumers,” Lynch said. “We also know that newsrooms need to be resilient and sustainable to survive. Our funding is going toward paying the staff for their time in service to local news, and to the community, which is important for The Mirror’s long-term success.
With the grant, The Mānoa Mirror will continue serving diverse audiences in Hawai‘i, including the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities that the university is founded upon.
Free, online, and mobile-accessible, The Mānoa Mirror aims to become the voice of its generation in the heart of the Pacific Ocean.
FOR UH • FOR HAWAIʻI, The Campaign for the University of Hawaiʻi, is focused on raising $1 billion to support UH priorities on all 10 campuses across the state, including student success; research that matters; kuleana to Native Hawaiians and Hawaiʻi; sustainability, resilience and conservation; innovation and entrepreneurship; building Hawaiʻi’s workforce; and engaging our community. Learn more at uhfoundation.org/4UH4HI
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The University of Hawai‘i Foundation, a nonprofit organization, raises private funds to support the University of Hawai‘i System. The mission of the University of Hawai‘i Foundation is to unite donors’ passions with the University of Hawai‘i’s aspirations by raising philanthropic support and managing private investments to benefit UH, the people of Hawai‘i and our future generations. uhfoundation.org
