WinCity Media shares in $100K grants

WinCity Voices read­ers can expect more local pho­tog­ra­phy, video, and field report­ing in the months ahead after WinCity Media received a $10,000 grant to strength­en its news­room capacity.

WinCity Media is the gov­ern­ing non­prof­it behind WinCity Voices and oth­er projects.

WinCity Media’s grant appli­ca­tion, titled “Field Ready: A Reporter Technology Investment for WinCity Voices,” pro­posed spend­ing on pro­fes­sion­al cam­era gear, essen­tial field sup­plies, and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy to strength­en capac­i­ty, ele­vate visu­al sto­ry­telling, and build oper­a­tional infra­struc­ture to sus­tain inde­pen­dent, non­prof­it jour­nal­ism in Clark County long-term.

Pete Koutoulas, exec­u­tive direc­tor of WinCity Media and editor/publisher of WinCity Voices, learned last week that WinCity Media’s grant pro­pos­al was accepted.

“I’m excit­ed for our reporter, Randy Patrick, and for oth­ers in our orga­ni­za­tion, as well as our read­ers. This grant helps put us on a stronger foot­ing for meet­ing the chal­lenges of the near future,” Koutoulas said.

“The gear and sup­plies from this grant will be reflect­ed in our work over the com­ing months. Our read­ers will see a dif­fer­ence. We will be doing more local pho­tog­ra­phy, more video, and will be bet­ter pre­pared to report news and tell the sto­ries of Clark County.

“We are grate­ful to Press Forward Blue Grass for this grant,” Koutoulas con­tin­ued. “They also fund­ed our sum­mer intern, Zach Ross, who has done a great job for us. The staff at PFBG has been so help­ful and sup­port­ive of our mis­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly their direc­tor, Melissa Newman. We can’t thank them enough for the con­fi­dence and trust they have placed in our project.”

WinCity Media was not the only Winchester news orga­ni­za­tion rec­og­nized; The Winchester Sun also received one of the grants.

Press Forward Blue Grass award­ed a total of $100,000 in Sustainable Newsroom Innovation Grants to ten local news orga­ni­za­tions across Kentucky. The grants sup­port projects designed to strength­en the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of local jour­nal­ism while expand­ing access to reli­able, com­mu­ni­ty-cen­tered news and information.

The grants, admin­is­tered through the Blue Grass Community Foundation, sup­port inno­v­a­tive projects that help local news­rooms diver­si­fy rev­enue, grow audi­ences, build report­ing capac­i­ty, devel­op the next gen­er­a­tion of jour­nal­ists, and deep­en com­mu­ni­ty trust.

Press Forward Blue Grass is a region­al chap­ter of the nation­al Press Forward move­ment and an ini­tia­tive of Blue Grass Community Foundation, work­ing to strength­en local news and infor­ma­tion through strate­gic invest­ments, edu­ca­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and pol­i­cy lead­er­ship. Its mis­sion is to ensure that every com­mu­ni­ty has access to trust­ed local jour­nal­ism that informs res­i­dents, strength­ens civic engage­ment, and sup­ports thriv­ing communities.policy lead­er­ship. Its mis­sion is to ensure every com­mu­ni­ty has access to trust­ed local jour­nal­ism that informs res­i­dents, strength­ens civic engage­ment, and sup­ports thriv­ing communities.