Local News Day uplifts the reader side of the community news equation.

Erik Cushman here, reporting good news about a groundswell of support for community news happening statewide and nationally.

Today, April 9, is the first-ever Local News Day. It is a national day of action connecting Americans to local, independent and trusted news sources. It is the result of a grassroots campaign dreamed into existence by John S. Adams, the executive director of Montana Free Press. In just the last three months, the initiative has enlisted more than 1,300 local newsrooms nationwide to participate.

Here at Monterey County Weekly and Monterey County Now, our goal is to gain 3,000 new subscribers this week. At present, we have just shy of 30,000 subscribers to the daily Monterey County Now e-newsletter. To get to our goal, we are asking for your help.

If you think local health care reporting is informative, culture writing evocative or reporting on a city council vote is important, then it seems like you are a believer in local news. If you’re a reader who thinks knowing about Monterey County’s food and wine scene or where to go to hear live music makes you more connected, then you’re already engaged with the mission of Local News Day. The fact that you are reading this newsletter shows you’re interacting with our coverage—for that, thank you.

This week, I’m asking you to step up and become an ambassador. If you hand over an edition of the Weekly or forward a Monterey County Now e-newsletter this week to three people in your network and suggest that they subscribe to the newsletter, together we can help make the local information ecosystem healthier and more sustainable.

There is no cost to subscribe to the newsletter. The same is true of our website and the print edition of the paper—all are entirely free to readers.

In Sacramento, there is also a flurry of activity taking place to help shore up the news industry.

In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 155 into law, establishing the California Civic Media Program and authorizing the economic development agency GO-Biz to empanel a nine-person advisory board to propose how to distribute $20 million this year to eligible California journalism entities. (I am one of those nine board members.)

It comprises $10 million in state funds matched by $10 million from Google. GO-Biz has hired the James B. McClatchy Foundation to act as a third-party administrator and establish guidelines for how newsrooms can qualify, and then distribute the state money.

The board reviewed two options for distribution of the money. One is based on prorated funding of newsrooms based on the number of journalists employed; the other is akin to a grant process where newsrooms would apply to fund a specific journalism project.

The hang-up remains that while the state knows how much money it has to distribute, the best estimate for the number of journalists is imprecise, somewhere between 2,400-3,700. So while the money will be impactful, it will not be transformative.

The good news is that just like you on Local News Day, the State of California believes in supporting local news.