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From the ashes of DCist…Help us launch The 51st!

February 2024 gave us all the worst kind of déjà vu when executives at WAMU abruptly shuttered DCist, fired 16 people, and took the site’s archive offline. Didn’t this all just happen? Didn’t it just come back? There’s literally still “DCist is back, baby” merch sitting on my desk.

Alas, DCist’s second life at WAMU met a fate that’s now all too familiar in local news. For years, the beloved outlet gave you award-winning investigations, weekly events roundups, breakdowns of D.C. Council drama, and funny tidbits — and we loved doing it. But sites are not cats, and they don’t have nine lives. So we want to do this again, but better.

Enter The 51st.

As we watched our supporters lament DCist’s loss in the weeks and months after the site was shut down, a team of alumni started scheming. What might it be like if we made a news source controlled by the journalists writing the stories? What if we finally got the chance to meaningfully engage with our readers and neighbors, creating journalism they really care about?

We decided to give it our best shot. Six of us are launching a worker-led nonprofit newsroom serving the District of Columbia.

What does that mean, exactly? It means we (the people making the journalism) and you (the community) decide where and how our dollars are used — and how we make our journalism.

But in order to make this happen, we need your help. The 51st needs $250,000 to cover the basic costs of launching a news organization: paying our writers and editors and setting up the infrastructure for our newsletter, website, and community events. We're aiming to raise that amount in one month with your help, by August 16. Journalism as a public good requires public support. It’s critical that those of us who can afford it invest in the independent local media our city deserves.

Gifts will be retroactively tax deductible once we receive our 501c3 status (which we've applied for!). You'll receive an email about that in the next 6 months. If you wish to make a gift that's immediately tax deductible or give through a Donor Advised Fund, please email the51stnews@gmail.com.

What will The 51st look like?

To start, The 51st will be a weekly newsletter. Alongside at least one deeply reported, original story about D.C., we'll help cut out the noise and make sense of the week: from other news and curiosities to events guides and resources. We plan to carry over some of DCist’s voice and sensibility, but what makes our stories special is that they’ll be driven by our conversations with you.

We want to build a reciprocal relationship with readers and community members, ensuring that the stories we write are useful and informative. We plan to do that via a slate of in-person listening events and other kinds of community engagement pioneered by like-minded local news sites across the country. We’ll also be recruiting a steering committee of community members to help guide us as we build this operation.

To start, you can catch us in person at these times throughout the campaign:

Saturday, 7/20 @ Ward 8 Farmers Market | 9 am - 1 pm
Sunday, 7/21 @ Dupont Farmers Market | 10 am - 2 pm
Sunday, 7/28 @ Eastern Market | 10 am - 2 pm

We'll be adding additional IRL pop-ups throughout the month, so keep your eyes on our socials (@51stNews) for updates! And we'll keep anyone who donates apprised of our progress, right in your inbox.

We're a small team, and this is a big city. We know we won't be able to cover it all. The 51st will prioritize coverage that makes living here easier for residents — and sometimes more fun. We’ll cover the cost of living in D.C.; we’ll explain how the District works and how to navigate social services and civic processes; we’ll boldly hold bad actors to account. And, last but not least, we’ll celebrate why we all love it here — writing about the food, music, and idiosyncrasies that make people proud to call D.C. home.

We believe that all D.C. residents deserve a more equitable and just place to live. Our reporting will be fair, rigorous, and rooted in our conviction that journalism is meant to make people’s lives better.

Who are we?

Abigail Higgins moved to D.C. after almost a decade as a foreign correspondent in East Africa. She’s worked as an editor at DCist and WAMU, a regular contributor to the Washington Post, and has investigated corporate landlords and forced labor. She’s the First Vice President of the National Writers Union and trains incarcerated writers and community journalists. On days off she’s usually biking the C&O Canal Trail, hiking Rock Creek, or escaping to the Delaware shore with a book.

Colleen Grablick has called D.C. home for nearly eight years. She previously worked as a general assignment reporter at DCist and WAMU, where she covered everything from rats to local council races. When she’s not scheming with the 51st team, she works at a local bookstore and writes about pets for the Washington Post. She loves long runs through Rock Creek Park and hanging out with her cat Mouse, and laments that these two things can’t be done simultaneously.

Eric Falquero has lived in D.C. longer than anywhere else in his life. Before his journalism career, he worked for food trucks, bars, and Trader Joe’s (when there was only one in the District). He spent a decade collaborating with residents experiencing homelessness to amplify their voices and report on poverty for Street Sense Media. He went on to build partnerships and projects for WAMU/DCist with other local news organizations. In his free time, he contributes to his neighborhood compost co-op and can often be found at music venues or watching birds at parks such as Hains Point, Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, and Rock Creek.

Maddie Poore has called D.C. home for almost a decade. She worked at WAMU for six years and during her time there she launched and ran the DCist membership program. Bridging the space between editorial and fundraising, she’s passionate about local journalism that improves the lives of people in D.C. Outside of work she enjoys co-hosting Flower Potluck DMV, swimming with friends at Banneker, and foraging for snacks from fruit trees.

Natalie Delgadillo has lived in four different neighborhoods and three different quadrants of D.C. across her near-decade in the city. She’s been covering her adopted home as a local journalist since 2018, and was previously the managing editor of DCist. Before that, she was a bilingual journalist covering environmental justice and immigration issues for English and Spanish language publications. You can usually find her roaming bookstores across the city, sitting in local coffee shops on sunny days, or eating tacos at one of several great spots on 14th.

Teresa Frontado moved to D.C. two years ago to be the executive editor at WAMU/DCist. She has since become obsessed with documenting the city's seasonal changes on her Instagram account. She dragged her dog through the tidal basin at 6 a.m. to see the cherry blossoms (twice), loves Rock Creek Park and the National Arboretum, and is permanently surprised by the resilience of flowers in the district (you can find them everywhere). Teresa is an award-winning journalist and editor with over 20 years of experience helping newsrooms navigate the complexities of multiplatform publishing. She has led newsrooms in Florida, Texas, and the DMV.

What do we need to make The 51st happen?

Well, money. We have zippo right now. Our goal is to raise $250,000 from individuals in this month-long campaign, which would keep us afloat for five months. Your donations will cover paying us (the six co-founders listed above), the freelance and contract workers who helped shape our brand, and the opportunity to hire additional writers — all on top of the miscellaneous costs of running a news organization.

Once we have some money to keep the lights on, we’ll build this with you, seeking your input and sharing our progress along the way. Then we’ll start publishing this fall.

In addition to this appeal for community support, we're also approaching foundations and major donors for another $250,000 to carry us into the new year. Know anyone you think can help out? Are you that someone? We’d love to be in touch! Please email the51stnews@gmail.com.

Right now, and into the future, we need people who care about local journalism to become sustaining members and chip in monthly. We’ll be reaching out about this as soon as the crowdfunding wraps up. Our business model is simple: provide journalism as a public service, with support from the public.

If we don't quite reach our goal, we'll make it work.
If we exceed it, we can do more, sooner!
But if we don't come close, we'll be transparent, halt this endeavor, and donate the funds after accounting for our losses.

But we really think we can make local journalism — and our city — better together. We hope you do too.

Help Launch The 51st

D.C.'s new worker-led nonprofit newsroom