Whole Community News is a special project of the news nonprofit 501(c)(3) Corporation for Public Community Newspapers, founded in 2006. Our tax ID# is 20-4826642.
John Quetzalcoatl Murray, CPCN executive director, served as reporter, editor, and/or publisher for weekly community newspapers in Alaska, Utah, Washington, Hawai’i, Montana, and Oregon. One of CPCN’s initial projects was to publish the Clark Fork Chronicle, a weekly community newspaper in western Montana, which garnered over 50 awards from the Montana Newspaper Association, including the top award for Community Service. Working for both Lane County (studying all of A&T’s work processes) and Eugene (designing a Goal 1-compliant data governance program) offers a deep perspective of local government that informs our reporting and editing with Eugene community radio station KEPW 97.3 FM.
KEPW News was honored to receive the prestigious Edward R. Murrow award for the best Digital News site, edging out KLCC and other great regional news organizations in Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon.
When KEPW’s website subsequently encountered security issues and was temporarily blacklisted by many platforms, KEPW offered a very generous grant to CPCN to continue publishing our award-winning news website for years. Whole Community News is funded by KEPW and by listener and reader membership contributions, available through the CPCN website, https://www.PublicNewspapers.org.
Whole Community News takes its name from an emergency management term used by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Whole Community refers to “a means by which residents, emergency management practitioners, organizational and community leaders, and government officials can collectively understand and assess the needs of their respective communities and determine the best ways to organize and strengthen their assets.” Over the last decade, a series of preparedness initiatives originating with Eugene-Springfield neighborhood volunteers have been organized into a comprehensive program.
The KEPW 97.3 Whole Community News team welcomes all community contributions. We also encourage residents to report the latest community news from your faith communities, granges, homeowner associations, neighborhood associations, discussion groups, time banks, and other favorite civic organizations.
See also: A preparedness model for local news, What’s my watershed?
