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States Newsroom is a nonprofit news network in the United States. It has news organizations in 39 U.S. states and newsrooms in all 50 state capitals through partnerships, focusing primarily on state politics.[2][3][4] States Newsroom grew out of NC Policy Watch, a progressivethink tank founded in 2004 by Chris Fitzsimon,[5][6] who is its current president. In 2017, the project expanded, using the liberal group the Hopewell Fund as an incubator. In 2019, States Newsroom became an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit.[7][8]
States Newsroom provides funding, human resources, and digital support to journalists in the state newsrooms.[9] It typically has four to six journalists per newsroom[4] and allows its articles to be republished for free under a Creative Commons license.[9][4][10]
States Newsroom accepts no corporate donations and has publicly shared the names of all donors contributing $1,000 or more since becoming a 501(c)(3) in 2019.[4][3][11] The progressive Wyss Foundation gave $1 million to States Newsroom in 2020.[12]
States Newsroom's commentary and opinion pieces are clearly-labeled and generally lean left. The organization does not allow opinion pieces from candidates or political officeholders.[4][8][10] Many, but not all, of the organization's larger donors also lean left.[4] States Newsroom did not disclose its donors until 2020, when it started disclosing the names of all donors giving more than $1,000 since becoming a 501(c)(3) in 2019.[7] In August 2020, Inside Philanthropy reported that Google was one of the funders of States Newsroom.[7] The largest single contributors donated $21.2 million and $9.9 million in 2022 and 2023, respectively.[13][14]
In 2023, the Pew Charitable Trusts transferred its Stateline news service, which provides nonpartisan reporting on trends in state policy, to States Newsroom with $3 million to help with the transition.[8]
In 2024, States Newsroom reported having 220 full-time employees, with an annual budget of more than $22 million. It grew from five affiliates upon its 2019 launch to 39 freestanding newsrooms at 11 partner outlets covering all 50 states by early 2024.[4]
Given its history of "dark money" funding and left-leaning editorial boards, some have questioned the partisanship of States Newsroom's journalism.[6][15] In January 2020, Steven Brill of NewsGuard asked States Newsroom to reveal their donors—which the organization did later that year.[16][10][7] But in 2021, after accepting a $1 million donation from the progressive Wyss Foundation, NewsGuard said their journalism was "bought by people with a political agenda".[12] A June 2024 NewsGuard study continued to categorize State Newsroom as a partisan outlet designed to look apolitical.[17] That same month, Axios called States Newsroom "one of the more strategic" of the "politically motivated websites masquerading as independent local news outlets."[3]
In 2020, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism listed but then retracted adding the newsrooms as "hyperpartisan" in a map.[18][19] At a press conference in November of that year, Missouri Governor Mike Parson refused to take a question from a Missouri Independent reporter, saying "I am not going to respond to a c4 out of Virginia that is absolutely a propaganda news agency." According to PolitiFact, the Missouri Independent is a legitimate news organization, a 501(c)(3), and "not a website peddling hoaxes."[20]
In 2023, Nieman noted the experience of the journalists[8] and in 2024 called NewsGuard's depiction of States Newsroom "misguided."[21] In April 2024, Cameron Joseph wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that the outlets "are nothing like the 'pink slime' organizations that pass off partisan propaganda as local news. Many of the journalists running the local newsrooms... had previously been at major state newspapers" and that reporters and editors were largely autonomous from the national operation.[4]
In July 2019, States Newsroom had 13 outlets, nine of which were in swing states.[6] As of 2024, States Newsroom had newsrooms in 39 states under its umbrella and the nationwide Stateline newsroom. In the other 11 states, States Newsroom syndicates content from independent nonprofit newsrooms such as CalMatters,[4]CT Mirror,[22]Honolulu Civil Beat,[4]Mississippi Today,[23]New York Focus, and the Texas Tribune.[4]
In 2021, Iowa Capital Dispatch was the first to report a lawsuit against a local Tyson pork-processing plant for work conditions during COVID-19.[9]
The 39 state newsrooms under the States Newsroom umbrella include:[4][24]
States Newsroom, a network of nonprofit news outlets, now has a presence...
These types of websites are often referred to as 'pink slime,' a term that originated in the ground beef industry. The term has been used for more than a decade to describe politically motivated websites masquerading as independent local news outlets... Some of the more strategic sites are run by groups that are more much explicit about their funding and motives, such as Courier Newsroom and States Newsroom.
While the news coverage strives to be balanced and nonpartisan, the sites' commentary section leans left.
In addition to working in television news, States director and publisher Chris Fitzsimon founded a progressive think tank and the liberal news and commentary website NC Policy Watch, which he said is 'sort of the model for the news outlets we support.'
Donors listed include the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, Google and the Wyss Foundation, but mostly individuals, along with 2,100 donations under $500 not listed.
States Newsroom formed two years ago to attempt to fill a void in what many government watchdogs and civil-society experts believe is one of the biggest manifestations of the local journalism crisis: the dire shortage of reporters covering state government.
States Newsroom, a group of news sites based in state capitals, received $1 million from the Wyss Foundation last year. NewsGuard, a media watchdog that analyzes the credibility of news outlets, concluded that State Newsroom's journalism had been 'bought by people with a political agenda.'
States Newsroom's ethics policy states its publications are nonpartisan. Fitzsimon said the editorial board is "on the liberal side," drawing a comparison with The New York Times.
While we respect NewsGuard's mission, we are concerned that as a for-profit startup they have adopted a flawed methodology that punishes innovative, fact-based organizations such as ours, while endorsing the work of outlets that promote conspiracy theories and white nationalism such as Breitbart, the Daily Caller, TheBlaze and FoxNews.com. We urge NewsGuard to update their methodology and use their platform to stand up for real journalism and hold those who spread hate and misinformation accountable.
The Missouri Independent is a news outlet that was founded in October in partnership with States Newsroom, a national nonprofit funded by grants, donors and readers. It has created nonprofit news organizations in 19 U.S. states.
(The finalist recognition for the Alabama Reflector, a States Newsroom site, must feel extra sweet, given that some still misguidedly label it and its siblings as so-called "pink slime" news sites.)
