Born-digital local news is increasingly at risk of being lost, leaving gaps in the public record that future communities, researchers, and historians may never be able to recover.

A new two-year grant from the Mellon Foundation will support a collaborative project between NYU Libraries and Portico to strengthen community engagement, expand technical capacity, and help develop a sustainable model for preserving born-digital local news.

NYU Libraries and Portico have received a two-year grant from the Mellon Foundation to support a collaborative project focused on preserving born-digital local news. For additional details about the Mellon Foundation grant and the collaborative project, read the full announcement.

For Portico, the project builds on ongoing work to explore scalable, preservation-grade approaches for safeguarding born-digital journalism. By preserving content directly from newsroom content management systems, the initiative is helping address an emerging preservation challenge while minimizing the operational burden on participating news organizations.

The collaboration reflects a shared commitment to protecting the public record and ensuring that today’s local journalism remains available to future researchers, historians, and communities.