Today, URL Media announced that it has welcomed five esteemed media organizations to its network of high-performing outlets serving Black and Brown communities. The new partners, Elevate Dayton, Capital B, The Electorette, India Currents, and El Tecolote, bring a diverse range of perspectives and insights from across the country, amplifying URL Media’s reach and impact during this pivotal election year. The new cohort brings the total URL Media network to 32 partners, and the total audience of the network to nearly 26 million.

“These new partners represent a new phase of URL Media’s growth,” said S. Mitra Kalita, CEO and co-founder. “To have organizations with this reporting power and the trust of their audiences in an election year makes URL Media a must-know media company,” she adds. “Every morning, our website gives me a pulse on America’s grassroots, and I am excited to see this cohort bring more breadth and energy to our coverage.” 

“We are excited to welcome five new BIPOC media organizations into the URL Media network,” said President and co-founder Sara M. Lomax. “We are in a moment when educating, empowering and mobilizing Black and Brown communities is essential in our fight for equality, justice and democracy. These newest URL partners have an extraordinary body of work that will expand our reach and impact while building a collaborative approach to independent media sustainability.”

With its steadfast commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusiveness, media group Elevate Dayton fills a gaping information void about and within the underrepresented communities of Dayton, Ohio. 

“Joining the URL Media network marks a pivotal moment for [our organization],” said Elevate Dayton publisher and CEO Nate Dillard. “This partnership expands our reach and deepens our impact, aligning us with a national network committed to authentic, trusted community journalism.”

In a similar spirit, Capital B, a Black-led nonprofit news organization centering Black communities with essential local reporting and in-depth national coverage, joins URL Media with a mission to combat misinformation and provide high-quality news for and about Black communities. 

“Capital B is excited to join our peers in the URL Media network and work together toward building diverse, sustainable businesses that will help us serve our communities for years to come,” said Gillian White, Chief Revenue Officer at Capital B.

The Electorette podcast shares this dedication to amplifying underrepresented voices. Since its launch in 2017, the podcast, known for its intersectional feminist approach to politics, has received nearly 580,000 downloads. “URL Media espouses our view that solutions to the world’s biggest problems are better when tackled through the lens of inclusivity,” said host and founder Jenn Taylor-Skinner.

India Currents, an award-winning nonprofit digital publication, highlights the diverse voices and experiences of the Indian American community. As a community convener, the publication has documented the lives of the Indian diaspora in Silicon Valley for over 35 years, breaking down cultural silos and nurturing civic engagement within and beyond the community. 

“India Currents is thrilled to become a part of the URL Network,” said publisher Vandana Kumar. “We aim to enhance our advertising revenue and forge a path to long-term sustainability through this valuable partnership.” 

Rounding out the new organizations joining the network is El Tecolote. Founded in 1970, El Tecolote is a free, bilingual, nonprofit newspaper serving Latinx communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a circulation of 7,000, El Tecolote remains the longest running bilingual newspaper in California and has broadened its reach on social media and with podcast programming in recent years.

“We knew that our time for visibility and recognition would come,” said publisher Fátima Ramírez. “[We are] thrilled for El Tecolote to join URL Media because I know that with their support, our legacy bilingual publication will finally be able to step into its full power as a robust multimedia platform that centers the voices of our Latinx communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.” 

Elevate Dayton, Capital B, The Electorette, India Currents and El Tecolote join URL Media partners AsAmNews, Luz Media, Trenton Journal, Black Voice News, Documented, Epicenter-NYC, Native News Online, Prism, Our Body Politic, Outlier Media, palabra., Immigrantly, The Oklahoma Eagle, Sahan Journal, PushBlack, Pulso, Scalawag, ScrollStack, TBN24, La Noticia, The Haitian Times, Watch The Yard, Latina to Latina, How to Talk to [High Achievers] about Anything, and How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything, Black Girl Times and WURD Radio.

URL Media was founded in 2021 with the goal to build a decentralized, multi-platform network of high-performing Black and Brown media organizations. Growing from eight to now 32, the members consist of exceptional news outlets representing a diverse mix of culture, format, geography and audience that amplify each other’s content and share revenues as a way to build greater sustainability for BIPOC media.  Since its inception, URL Media has almost tripled in partners, doubled their revenue and maintained its profitability.

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Contact:
David@commonsoulcomm.org

856.397.5437

Ariam Alula (how to say it) is URL Media’s first audience manager. She works closely with URL Media’s Editorial Director and leads the network’s social and newsletter content while further developing and executing the brand’s strategic audience goals. Alula who was born and raised in The Bronx had this to say about her work upon joining the network in the fall of 2022.

“I'm committed to helping our audience understand how issues in their own backyard impact other BIPOC communities. Also, I believe that our network's content amplification and original reporting should fully reflect and affirm the customs and cultural norms of our multicultural, multidisciplinary, and geographically diverse audiences. As BIPOC communities have and continue to be grossly misrepresented by the mainstream media, this part of the work can’t be overstated. Also growing up as a child of immigrants, community is an integral part of my identity, and it's something I bring to URL Media every day.”

Before joining the network, Alula sharpened her range of skills and interests in newsletter curation and editing, audience strategy and research, and measuring and tracking impact. In recent years Alula has worked for many organizations in the journalism support space, such as Coda Story while based in the Republic of Georgia and U.S.-based organizations like the Institute for Nonprofit News, the Public Square Team at Democracy Fund, Online News Association and Women Do News. She has also written for the American Press Institute’s Need to Know newsletter.

Alula is also a proud graduate of the engagement journalism program at the Craig Newmark Journalism School at the City University of New York, where she spent 16 long, insightful and experimental months working with family caregivers of people with autism in New York City.