It’s been an incredible year for the Atlanta Community Press Collective. 

 

Since January, we have experienced incredible sorrow. From the killing of forest defender Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán by the Georgia State Patrol, the charging of 61 people with racketeering conspiracy by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, to the killing of Deacon Johnny Hollman by the Atlanta Police Department and the ongoing genocide in Palestine. In the face of these continuing tragedies, we strengthened our resolve to tell the stories Atlanta needs to hear. 

 

Amidst that sorrow we also found joy. From ACPC’s inception in 2021 through the beginning of this year, we sustained this project out of our own pockets and in our spare time as we all worked full-time jobs outside ACPC. At the behest of wise friends, we transitioned into a fiscally sponsored project under the Open Collective Foundation umbrella in February and began accepting funding for our work. Due to a heartwarming initial outpouring of support from our community, we were able to begin paying ourselves living wages in March. Since then, just over 300 individual donors have contributed nearly $40,000 and three of us have switched from our previous jobs into ACPC as our full-time commitments.  

 

Our work would not be sustainable without the generous support of several charitable foundations both local and national. Our foundation partners include: The Babochki Collective; The Piper Fund, a Proteus Fund Initiative; AEC Trust; The Borealis Philanthropy Communities Transforming Policing Fund; Voqal; Press On; Amalgamated Charitable Foundation; and the Homestead Foundation. Together these funding partners provided $460,000 in support of ACPC’s mission. 

 

The support of our donors enabled us to tell the stories left uncovered by corporately owned media outlets. Through our initial coverage of the political prosecution of the Stop Cop City movement, to uncovering the true taxpayer cost of the training center, and our docuseries on the 61 individuals charged with racketeering by the Georgia Attorney General, ACPC remains at the forefront of storytelling about Cop City. Beyond just Cop City and with the aid of our research team—which filed over 140 open records requests to local, state, and federal agencies—ACPC maintains a focus on government transparency and continues to expand our coverage of criminal and social justice related issues. 

 

Through the support of our donors and community, ACPC had a dramatic impact on the face of media in Atlanta. That impact garnered recognition from our community and the Center for Civic Innovation, which selected ACPC as one of its 2023 Good Trouble Honorees for transparency alongside fellow independent media partners, the Capital B Atlanta team. 

 

 

Throughout the year, our audience grew along with us. We continue to take a multi-modal approach to reporting the news, using the expectations of different platforms to deliver stories in ways that best reach each audience. 

 

Our main X/Twitter account now has over 15,000 followers, having grown from around 3,000 followers at the start of the year. This is the home of our breaking news coverage. If you would like to stay up to date on what’s happening in Atlanta, this is the place to check. 

 

We launched a second X/Twitter account in April, @ACPC_Live, separating our live tweet coverage of meetings and events from our main account to make it easier for you to find the information you need. This account is the best place to find what you need to know about Atlanta City Council meetings, press conferences, or other notable events as they are happening. 

 

Our Instagram account also saw an amazing level of growth over the year, going from around 1,000 followers to 10,000 in that time. Here you can find both slide summaries of the stories we post to our main website and the shorter video stories that make up the backbone of our video journalism program.  

 

Over the summer, we took our first steps toward a video journalism program. We kept our initial videos brief with an eye toward social media. As the year progressed, we began to develop longer form video content. To accommodate that transition, we launched our YouTube channel, which is home to our docuseries “In Their Words.”

 

Lastly, we published over 80 stories to our main website totaling 108,000 words. Our readership grew tenfold, going from an average of 37 readers per day in 2023 to 363 readers per day in 2023. 

 

 

There is plenty in store for 2024, but our first steps in the new year will focus on applying lessons learned from this year. 

 

One thing we did not have a lot of in 2023 was time. This was one of the main challenges we faced this year. We are going to be more intentional about our time in 2024. In that vein, from Dec. 23 to Jan. 8, ACPC will be temporarily reducing the scope of our coverage, giving ourselves a small amount of time to recover from such a non-stop year and work on administrative tasks to prepare us for the upcoming one. 

 

Additionally, in early 2024, we are headed to our first annual steering committee retreat. 

 

Over the last year, we continued to build the proverbial ACPC ship while trying to keep up with the fast-paced demands of coverage and growing number of issues important to Atlantans. During this retreat, we plan to formalize our structure, standardize our operating procedures, and establish our bylaws. This structuring will allow us to take the next big step in our growth process, hire new reporters, and expand our coverage while continuing to produce the rigorous coverage for which we are known.  

We look forward to continuing to serve our community in the coming year, and we thank all of you for the incredible support you showed us in 2023.