By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org
Thank you all for celebrating Local News Day together with our Spring fundraiser from April 3-12 helping InDepthNH.org raise $7,569.47, all of which is matched dollar for dollar by the Katy Burns Local Journalism Fund.
We are truly grateful.
Because the Katy Burns fund wants to match a full $10,000 in donations, they volunteered to match the first $2,430.53 in donations to our next major fundraiser, which we have already signed up for, NH Gives, June 9-10. If you want to help with a match for us for NH Gives, email me at nancywestnews@gmail.com or call 603-738-5635. Unbiased local news is more important now more than ever.
InDepthNH.org is a media sponsor for NH Gives, sponsored by the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits, and you can see their ad here. It is a huge fundraiser for New Hampshire nonprofits.
Call me old-fashioned, but I recommend donating to InDepthNH.org all year long because we work day and night doing our very best to keep you fully informed, to fulfill our mission to hold the powerful accountable and give voice to marginalized people, places and ideas.
Whether you hit the donate button, make a donor advised gift, a minimum mandatory distribution from your retirement account or a bequest to make sure unbiased reporting continues in New Hampshire, you can do it all here. Or by mailing a check to NH Center for Public Interest Journalism, 38 Edgewater Drive, Barrington, NH 03825. Our IRS EIN number is 812266973.
Local News Day is a national effort that just started April 9 to reconnect people with their local news outlets. InDepthNH was thrilled to participate and linked it with our Spring fundraiser to run from April 3-12.
The Katy Burns Local Journalism Fund has helped InDepthNH.org often since it was established by Katy’s husband, Don Burns and her family.
Katy Burns, a well-known journalist who wrote a column for the Concord Monitor for more than 20 years and worked for the now-closed Cleveland Press before that, died Nov. 22, 2023. Because of her many years as reporter, editor, columnist, press secretary, community activist and public official, Katy Burns was a zealous advocate for a free press and, in particular, for local journalism. To honor her and her legacy, her family established the Katy Burns Local Journalism Fund, with the goal of promoting and sustaining local journalism in New Hampshire.
It is critically important in New Hampshire where we have lost 75 percent of all news jobs since 2001, watched several newspapers close and circulation and revenues decline.
InDepthNH.org launched in 2015 to help rebuild news in New Hampshire. Last year more than 2 million people read our stories online and in other news outlets such as the Conway Daily Sun and Lawrence Eagle Tribune along with others. About 17,350 people have signed up for our free daily newsletter.
Katy Burns was a courageous, funny and award-winning journalist who won seven N.H. Press Association awards, including three “Columnist of the Year” awards.
According to her obituary, “Katy was an elegant writer who was unafraid to take on controversial topics or to annoy (and even outrage) elected officials and, inevitably, some readers. But she was also an insightful observer of every imaginable part of the local and national scene. As former Monitor editor Felice Belman wrote, ‘Seasons changed, political parties fell into and out of favor, governors came and went, and Katy Burns persisted, providing context, humor and a good dose of moral outrage to help us understand the often absurd parade on the public stage….Katy’s column, her unique voice, helped give the Monitor its personality, a regular jolt of opinion that readers loved … or loved to hate.'”
Our awesome reporters Garry Rayno, Paula Tracy, Damien Fisher, Zach Laird and Katharine Webster – and our columnists Arnie Alpert, Susan Dromey Heeter, Michael Davidow, Michael Ferber, George Liset and Wayne King, – are the best at what they do. We are all thrilled that political cartoonist Mike Marland has rejoined our team of veteran journalists who live to keep our readers informed. We like to tell the truth about what’s happening in New Hampshire and you all have responded by keeping this nonprofit in business. We are grateful.
More about Local News Day nationally here:https://localnewsday.org/