 Over the course of this program, we've heard from leaders in journalism, technology, and community activism talking about ways to strengthen local news coverage and our nation's democracy. The Knight Foundation is passionate about strengthening local news and their philanthropy. And that also means the support of other foundations, corporations, and individuals is also critical. Joining me now is Jennifer Pressin, the vice president of journalism at the Knight Foundation, and Laura Esserman, surgeon and member of the Esserman family, which has just announced in partnership with Knight a $2.5 million investment to journalism in South Florida. Welcome to both of you. First of all, thank you for the gift. What do you hope to accomplish with it? Well, I think what we hope to do is to really honor the work of local journalists. I think community values when it honors most, excuse me, community values when it honors most. And this is our opportunity to really stand up and thank the people who are doing the meticulous work, the really detailed work to get to the bottom, to get to truth, to hold the powerful accountable. We feel that local journalism is where it starts, and it's so very important. And particularly at this time when journalism is under assault from so many angles, both from credibility, from sources, and from financial infrastructure issues, it is really important that the community stand up and preserve local journalism. And so we're really excited to be able to provide a prize and also honorable mentions for people who are doing outstanding work, because we know there's so many people who are working hard, and as well to really support a year long fellowship in investigative journalism in partnership with the Herald. Jennifer is kind of a multi-pronged approach there. You've got a fellowship, you've got a prize. I mean, there's lots of different ways to try to tackle this problem. And while the national media conversation is often talking about oh, media bias on the national scale, local journalism actually has far more trust with people. And at the same time, as she pointed out, it's under assault from all these different economic forces and other forces as well. So as you mentioned, trust in local journalism is much higher than trust in the national media. So we think that local journalism is a really great opportunity in communities to just build trust in journalism, build bridges among people in communities. What is really fantastic about this gift by the Esserman family, the Esserman family in Miami, they have been generous benefactors of the arts of community organizations. But when the family came together to decide where they wanted to focus resources, they chose journalism. And we are seeing this across the country. We are seeing families, community foundations, place-based foundations understand the importance of local journalism in their communities, the importance for people to be informed with quality news and information so that they can make informed decisions. And we are just so excited that the Esserman family's $2.5 million gift will inspire others to do the same. But what would you say to other families or foundations who are kind of on the margins thinking about where they want to make their gifts? Why should they invest in journalism? There's buildings that could have their names on it. There's art centers, etc. But why journalism? Well, my parents have been really big civic leaders. My father really worked to help develop many of the really great structures that are here in Miami, from the Miami Zoo to the art center. And both my parents really believe that cultural life was so important, but they taught us all really important values, you know, to stand up for what's right, to honor the values of social justice, of intellectual freedom, of a free press. And we felt that one of the best ways we could work together as a family was to really honor accountability reporting. And we also feel that if you invest in local journalism, you are going to invest in getting the community interested and excited about and paying attention to local issues. This is an issue about preserving our democracy and preserving people's interest in keeping it free. As my mother says, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance and we want to invest in those people who are sacrificing, you know, all the time to really get to the bottom of stories and doing the hard work it takes not only to write about these stories and bring attention to people, making sure that we can galvanize people to change laws when they need to be changed, but to really get people excited about being involved in their local governments and their local communities. Without that, we put the very foundations of our freedom at risk. You know, that's the, you know, if my mother says if you want to keep the fires of freedom burning, we all have to stand up and make a difference. And we felt as a family, and my mother and father really wanted us to get together and work on something that was important. And we thought this prize was an exceptional opportunity for us to say to the community, we honor the work of these journalists. That's a way to make sure that that work is always valued. And journalists who are doing accountability work really represent those values that we all hold dear. And we don't want to see that disappear from our communities. My mother in particular was very clear about wanting to invest in the South Florida community and make sure that this reflected the local area. And my sister had the great idea to add in this investigative fellowship, which to make sure that we are helping to cover the cost of someone to do this work and to be trained to do the work. Miami Herald has such a great reputation and investigative journalism. And this is really a great opportunity, I think, to help spur other aspiring journalists and for them to know that people in the community value their work. I think that's how you keep the profession strong. And at this particular time in this country, we must make sure that our independent press has the support of the community. And as my mother said last night at the opening, she hopes the families in South Florida and all over the country will follow suit and make sure to support the efforts of journalists everywhere. You know, Jennifer, also the model of supporting fellowships is an interesting one that we're seeing play out a lot of different places. You don't necessarily have to stand up a whole new newspaper. You can actually support one that's doing good work already. Absolutely. And what you'll see here at Knight Foundation is there are a lot of very promising new models and new methods to both report local journalism and engage more effectively in the community and serve underrepresented and underserved communities. What was also very important about this gift is the Esserman family worked very closely with the Miami Foundation, which is a community foundation, the community foundation here in Miami. And here at the Knight Media Forum, we have leaders from community foundations across the country, and they are ready and willing to work with individuals and with partners to make solutions, this very creative solution work in their community. We just think it's important that the philanthropic pie for journalism must increase that in the way that philanthropy has supported the arts, philanthropy has supported education. We now need a focused effort for philanthropy to support journalism because we can't we can't have a thriving local democracy if people don't have the news and the information to make decisions. And don't have people to hold them accountable. And don't have people to hold them. I don't think that people aren't sitting around watching and holding them accountable. Correct. Yeah. Yes. All right. Jennifer Press and Laura Asserman, thank you both. Thank you. Thank you very much for bringing all of this to No problem. PBS viewers. Thank you. Thank you.