Friends of the alley:
Many of you may have seen an announcement in the latest issues of the alley, promoting a series of trainings alongside Phillips West Neighborhood Organization and the Journalism of Color Training Center. Unfortunately, we needed to cancel these three workshops, Oct. 7th, 12th, and 16th.
The workshop dates were announced after we received notice from the City of Minneapolis to proceed with the community journalism trainings funded by a grant through their Partnership Engagement Fund. However, in the last few weeks, we’ve learned that the City Attorney’s office is holding up the grant funding our project because they question whether or not community journalism, like the alley, serves a community good.
Our three organizations believe in playing fair and fair pay. While we deal with the logistics and First Amendment issues inherent to this challenge from the City Attorney’s office, we also know we cannot continue to do the work of this grant without guaranteeing fair pay for members of our team.
We appreciate your support in all of this and we will keep you updated as things unfold.
