The Tiny News Collective has nothing to do with in-studio musical performances, but Amy Kovac-Ashley describes it as a platform to help launch aspiring journalism entrepreneurs who want to serve their communities and have a vision for how to do that important work.
“The Tiny News Collective is a group of really exciting early stage founders who are creating new types of journalism and media outlets all across the country. We exist to help and support them in their early stages, which includes pre-launch,” she says.
Some members have been with the group since it kicked off around three years ago, something Kovac-Ashley didn’t really expect. Instead of playing the role of mother bird and nudging these fledgling organizations out of their proverbial nest, she’d rather take a step back and figure out what additional supports are needed.
“I’d rather learn about what it is they’re getting value from and see where we need to lean into that, but also where we might need to partner with other organizations to create bridges,” she says. “We need to think carefully about the folks we’re serving and what their specific needs are in their level of development.”
At the heart, The Tiny News Collective wants to help people bring new news and media opportunities to underserved communities and audiences.
“Our mission is to help diversify the people who are entrepreneurs and owners of media but also the kinds of content and other activities and experiences people are having with news and information across the country,” Kovac-Ashley says. “A majority of the founders that are our members, they are 70-75 percent BIPOC, almost 90 percent women and a very large percentage of folks who are from the LGBTQ community. We want to work with folks who will be serving communities and are really focused on their audience first. That’s a really important part of the application process with us.”
Amy Kovac-Ashley, the executive director of the Tiny News Collective, talks about developing first-time entrepreneurs in the news and community media space.
