Community Funds Are Offered New Ways to Measure Health of News Coverage in Their Cites and Towns

People who regularly follow the news are more likely to be involved in their communities and feel they make a difference, according to a study released by three nonprofits this week.

Those findings were unveiled as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation played host to about 350 community-foundation leaders as part of its annual Media Learning Seminar -- an event that pulls together journalism experts and foundation officials for two days of discussions about how foundations can help provide better information to their communities, in part by giving grants to news organizations. In conjunction with the release of the study, Knight unveiled a “community information toolkit” designed to help community foundations identify problems with news-media coverage and information infrastructure in their cities and towns.