Deceleration was selected along with hundreds of other independent and nonpartisan small news outlets from around the United States for two years of supplemental funding intended to help close persistent local news coverage gaps. The 205 media teams chosen will share $20 million in funding thanks to Press Forward, the nationwide movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news.
The recipients of the Press Forward grant were selected from more than 900 applications.
“This funding provides important confirmation that we are on the right path in producing grassroots media as an intellectual commons, so that our communities can understand the root causes of the ecological and political crises we live on the day to day,” said Deceleration Executive Editor Marisol Cortez.
Dale Anglin, director of Press Forward, referred to the recipients as “small but mighty” newsrooms that are “reporting for and on communities that haven’t always been covered.” Press Forward has emerged as a critical funder of efforts to invest in fact-based local news as an antidote to the erosion of democracy in the United States and spread of disinformation and polarization.
The goal of Press Forward is to “catalyze a local news renaissance that will reshape the local news landscape and re-center local journalism as a force for community cohesion, civic participation, and government accountability.”
Deceleration is an online bioregional journal of environmental justice that was founded in 2016 and incorporated as a nonprofit newsroom in 2021. Deceleration’s unique reporting and analysis today serves a growing community rooted in the South Texas bioregion, as well as an international audience.
Related: Press Forward Press Release & Complete List of Award Recipients
Deceleration’s reporting and analysis are regularly republished in local, regional, and international media, ranging from the San Antonio Current, Texas Observer, Truthout, Monthly Review, and Resilience, among others.
Launched last year, Deceleration’s Regeneration online calendar highlights bioregional environmental events across the greater San Antonio area, including occasional important highlights from Austin to the Gulf Coast and the Texas-Mexico borderlands. The recently relaunched Deceleration Podcast tackles critical issues from the region and is hosted by more than a dozen popular podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music.
Many of the Press Forward recipients are newer nonprofits, like Deceleration, some launched in response to information needs revealed during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; others have deeper histories and are continuing to adapt and innovate after a century in business.
In San Antonio, Press Forward also provided funding for the Texas A&M University-San Antonio student newspaper The Mesquite. Other Texas-based recipients include The Austin Common, Austin Monitor, Austin Vida, Dallas Free Press, Dallas Voice, The Texas Spur, Shift Press, the Uvalde Leader-News, and the West Texas Tribune.
“Deceleration is all about helping our communities navigate unprecedented challenges,” said Deceleration Founder and Managing Editor Greg Harman. “Built upon hundreds of hours of uncompensated labor over several years, Deceleration this year finally cobbled together a sustainable, if bare bones, budget. The emergence of Press Forward in our lives, alongside ongoing critical reader support, gives us the confidence we will be able to deepen this work over the coming years.”
Deceleration continues to gain notice and investment. In May, Deceleration was included in the inaugural Latine Voices for Democracy Accelerator (LV4D) cohort by New Media Ventures. That grant allowed the publication to re-hire Cortez as a second full-time staff member. The publication hopes to scale up further in 2025 with a business manager and a full-time reporter.
The publication writes regularly about the causes and results of extreme heat in relation to local planning efforts, local and global struggles for the rights of nature in a period of rapid biodiversity collapse, and the accelerating war on trans lives as an indicator of accelerating disinformation and autocracy. Deceleration also uses public and private data to map the health of communities in the region. This summer, Deceleration turned its bilingual Extreme Heat Survival Guide into a doorhanger and distributed community heat tips to thousands of San Antonio area residents.
“Going forward, we are going to need movement and solutions journalism as key tools in our struggles to create more just and livable futures for everyone,” Cortez said.
Readers are invited to support our nonprofit initiative by becoming recurrent monthly donors or volunteering with us in a range of capacities, including with our community advisory board. Write editor@deceleration.news for details.
