Stacy Feldman, of Boulder Reporting Lab, will build a guide to help small local news organizations create pop-up newsrooms with — and for — their communities. This tool will help news organizations increase their ambition and impact, while providing emerging journalists or non-journalists the opportunity to be news shapers and make a difference in their cities and towns.

Feldman, founder and publisher of the nonprofit Boulder Reporting Lab, wants to help small community news organizations create pop-up newsrooms.

The origins of the idea came in the aftermath of 2021’s disastrous Marshall Fire. Boulder Reporting Lab collaborated with the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, setting up a pop-up newsroom with seven graduate students who reported on stories that might have never been told otherwise: the stories of the homes that survived the fire and remained livable, leaving their owners to find a path forward amid the devastation around them.

The expertise available within communities inspired Feldman to increase the accessibility of pop-up newsrooms by crafting a how-to guide that shows other community newsrooms ways to expand their coverage without taxing their limited resources.

“Pop-up newsrooms can allow smaller newsrooms to leverage the skills, expertise and drive of their community to be part of the news production process,” Feldman said. “The idea is for them to be nimble and temporary, to address something pressing — basically a four-month-long micro newsroom.”