The Baltimore Banner’s much-anticipated debut is going to be different than those of other nonprofit journalism experiments, not least because it has ample funding from the start. As many as 50 staffers will be on-hand for the office ribbon-cutting in early April, and the space has room for at least 50 more, reflecting ambitious expectations for growth.
The Banner is the brainchild of hotel magnate Stewart W. Bainum Jr., a former Maryland politician determined to boost local journalism in a famously competitive news town. Money has been no object, so far, and in an interview with the Local News Initiative on March 17, Bainum repeated his pledge to donate or raise $50 million over four years for the project.
His overarching goal: develop a model for local news that civic-minded, philanthropic investors can rally around in cities from coast-to-coast.
Since formulating his plan last year, Bainum has recruited an experienced team headed by Wall Street Journal veteran Imtiaz Patel as chief executive officer and the Los Angeles Times’ Kimi Yoshino as The Banner’s editor in chief. They’ve been busy hiring staff, building systems and otherwise laying the foundation for the subscriber-supported, all-digital publication they expect to launch in June – the exact launch date is still “give or take,” as Patel puts it.
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