Sumter Item launches tax-deductible support fund amid COVID-19

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In partnership with the Local Media Foundation, The Sumter Item has created a nonprofit, charitable fund to allow the public to support the newsroom's free COVID-19 coverage while receiving tax benefits.

Item Publisher Vince Johnson announced the fund's launch Monday. Donations to the fund can be made at www.givebutter.com/TheItem.

"These are unprecedented times for many of our local businesses, and The Item is no different in that regard," Johnson said. "At the exact time that our local news coverage is more important and reaching more people than ever, our advertising revenue has taken a tremendous hit. We're going to have to find new ways to fund the continuation of local news through this crisis, and we're making those options as easy and beneficial as we can for our community."

Accepting tax-deductible donations to support local news is new to The Sumter Item, Johnson said, but has been more widely adopted in otherwise for-profit local news organizations across the state and nation. The Post & Courier, Aiken Standard and Moultrie News are among the South Carolina newspapers that have also launched this COVID-19 nonprofit fund, joining dozens of newspapers across the nation. The Post & Courier also has a fund to support investigative journalism.

"We created the COVID-19 Local News Fund to ensure that critical coverage about the crisis and the impact on local communities would continue. Local media companies, like many other businesses, have been hard hit financially during the coronavirus crisis," said Nancy Lane, CEO of the Local Media Association and the Local Media Foundation. "These funds will go a long way in keeping reporters employed and continuing to cover the issues related to COVID-19."

Changes in funding of local news come at a time when the newspaper industry is in distress. Even before the pandemic's outbreak, more than 2,100 newspapers had been lost from local communities since 2004, according to research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Media and Journalism. The current crisis will only accelerate the downturn in the loss of local news in communities across America, Johnson said.

"We're hearing and reading about employee layoffs, reductions in print frequency and complete organizational shutdowns from local news organizations across the country multiple times every day," he said. "The newspaper, whether in print or online, is so essential to a lot of those most vulnerable to COVID-19, and all local news is tied to the long-term health and economic prosperity of its community."

"Our staff is doing so much at such a high quality right now, and they're all doing it in new settings that are not ideal," said Kayla Green, executive editor of The Sumter Item. "They're covering the community and designing the entire paper from home. They're getting out there to tell stories visually of the people serving on the front lines. They're trying to find advertising dollars in a world that doesn't seem suited for that right now. They're helping our longtime readers who still come to the office to make a payment or buy a paper. Anything you can do is much appreciated."

The Sumter Item is a 125-year-old, family owned newspaper primarily serving Sumter, Clarendon and Lee counties. In recent years, The Item has been named one of America's "10 Newspapers That Do It Right" and one of three national finalists for the "Mega Innovation Award for Newspapers."