CommonUnity Celebrates The Daily Herald: Honoring the Watchdog Role and Gratitude for Local Journalism Amidst Funding Challenges

As we celebrate the spirit of gratitude this month, CommonUnity would like to express its appreciation for the valuable work being done by The Daily Herald. The newspaper serves as a watchdog, keeps us informed and connects us by sharing stories about our community. We especially love the stories about community. 

The Herald is doing this with fewer dollars as advertising funding has shifted to tech giants.  We recently learned that the entire organization is run by 24 people, half of whom are reporters. That's only 12 reporters to cover all of Snohomish County. Wow. We are grateful for their hard work and for the fact that we have a local newspaper that is dedicated to our area. We appreciate the kind of focused coverage that we couldn't otherwise get from a newspaper in a neighboring county.

Further gratitude goes to Brenda Mann Harrison, The Daily Herald’s Journalism Development Director. In her words, her “role is to help take care of this valuable institution.” Her efforts were essential in launching three funds that collect tax-deductible donations to support reporting on environmental and climate change, investigative journalism, and Report for America Fund, which covers issues faced by the working class, such as struggles with housing, employment, and homelessness.

Brenda does an excellent job reminding us about the value of The Daily Herald with her regular reporting, including a recent article about how the newspaper decides which stories to cover. You can read it here. Also, if you are inclined to help support local reporting, you can find more information about each fund here.