The Local Independent News Coalition

A community of independent metro news organizations

The Local Independent News Coalition consists of anchor news organizations in eight major American cities, which play an essential role in informing their substantial public audiences.

LINC members include:

• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• The Boston Globe
• Chicago Public Media
• Newsday (Long Island, New York)
• The Philadelphia Inquirer
• The Seattle Times
• The Minnesota Star Tribune
• The Tampa Bay Times 

The eight independent members of the Coalition meet regularly to discuss common challenges and opportunities, compare data benchmarking, and identify opportunities for shared services and experimentation. 

Membership in LINC is by invitation only. For more information, please contact Lenfest Institute Chief Operating Officer Ken Herts.

Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program

In October 2024, The Lenfest Institute launched the AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program in partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft. The program is designed to help local newsrooms explore ways in which artificial intelligence can help drive business sustainability and innovation.

In the initial round of the program, five of the LINC newsrooms received grants to hire a two-year AI fellow to pursue projects that focus largely on improving business sustainability and implementing AI technologies within their organizations. The fellowship will also provide OpenAI and Microsoft Azure credits to help these publications experiment and develop tools to assist with local news.

As part of the program, the news organizations will work collaboratively with each other and the broader news industry to share leanings, product developments, case studies, and technical information needed to help replicate their work in other newsrooms.