What We Do
Journalism has a very bad reputation these days, a label well-earned through years of eroding the public trust.
Together, we can change that.
Our Mission
Lowcountry Online Journalism Initiative is a 501(c)(3)-approved organization registered with the Internal Revenue Service, the State of South Carolina and the Town of Bluffton.
Our mission statement: To promote and encourage the development of professional-quality, hyperlocal journalism across Bluffton and Beaufort County. Part of that mission is to train those new to the field to adhere to journalism ethics and standards that have been discarded too often in current-day reporting practices.
We aim to accomplish that by obtaining donations, grants and other public funding to start and grow a non-profit news organization, free from corporate influence that may dictate editorial decisions or coverage patterns.
Could You Say That in Plain English?
We want to create a community news organization, powered and supported by the people of Bluffton and the Lowcountry. If you have an idea for a news story, a video or a podcast, we want to give you the means and the basic tools to make your project part of the public domain for everyone to enjoy. Think of it as a Bluffton-centric NPR or PBS, a news outlet that gives all citizens the chance to create content that is enjoyed publicly.
The Growth of Non-Profit News Organizations
Adapt and survive. That’s what every communication medium has done over the last 200 years.
For centuries, newspapers were the standard bearer for covering local communities. As the Internet exploded, the newspaper industry failed to adapt, to find its niche in the daily newsgathering habits of its readers. As a result, there are news deserts all across this country where local newspapers used to thrive.
At the same time, the rise of cable news created the 24-hour news cycle, and a need to fill that airtime with compelling content. That has led to increasingly partisan echo chambers in the “news media,” and “compelling content” that no longer adheres to standards and ethics, but whose sole purpose is to attract clicks and viewers. That mindset has contributed mightily to the political and ideological divides we are all currently trying to navigate.
The slow death of newspapers has led many forward thinkers to rethink the concept of community journalism. Non-profit news organizations were born from a simple ideal, that news should be created for, supported by, and committed to the communities it serves. More than 1,000 non-profit news orgs have sprung up across the country over the past decade, committed to fostering civil debate about the issues that impact communities and creating content that is inclusive, innovative, sustainable and shared as a public service.
Our Commitment to Editorial Independence
We subscribe to standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News:
Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.
Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.
Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization and in compliance with INN’s Membership Standards.