Not For Profit, But For The People: The Power Of Community Media In Philadelphia

image above: Dr. Clemencia Rodríguez and Rasheed Z. Ajamu at the People’s Media Camp organized by The People’s Media Record, October 3-5, 2025. Picture courtesy of People’s Media Record, taken by Luiza Barreto.

For the first time in a century, the United States is experiencing a sustained decline in press freedom. According to Reporters Without Borders, decisions by the Trump administration, such as politicizing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and banning the Associated Press from the White House, have accelerated this trend. At the same time, almost 40% of local newspapers that existed in 2005 have closed, local newsrooms continue to disappear, and arrests of journalists have surged from 15 to 50 between 2023 and 2024. Together, these pressures have weakened the country’s information sphere.

The consequences are felt strongly across both public and corporate media. Public media outlets are being defunded, while major corporate newsrooms are increasingly consolidated under right-wing leadership and ownership. At a moment when public information is being censored, digital archives are quietly erased, and even mainstream outlets face mounting political and economic constraints, one form of media stands out as a beacon of democratic and participatory values: community media.

What is community media, and why does it matter?

In Philadelphia, community media is a rich and diverse ecosystem. You can learn to produce your own media at spaces like PhillyCAM or Scribe Video Center, and experiment with video technologies through the Termite TV Collective. You can find hyperlocal news in outlets like Germantown Info Hub, whose reporters are in direct conversation with residents. Black communities can access coverage centered on their experiences at The Philly Download, and Latinas can find information on domestic violence, an issue that disproportionately affects their community, through Voz Colectiva. Philadelphians looking to print their own posters or zines can do so at The Soapbox, and anyone interested in history can explore People’s Media Record’s extensive archive of community-produced media from across the city. These are just a few of the many ways Philadelphians can engage in creating and consuming community media.

Community media is a form of alternative media: grassroots communication that operates outside mass, commercial, or government-controlled systems. Communications scholar Dr. Clemencia Rodríguez defines community media as “media technologies in the hands of communities producing media narratives for those communities,” distinguishing it from other practices within the broader alternative media landscape.

Globally, community media is now recognized as an essential part of the media landscape. UNESCO characterizes it as “important for a pluralistic media ecology as it helps prevent concentration of media ownership and allows people to exercise their right to freedom of expression.

According to Rodríguez, community media plays a critical role in three areas: developing political agency, safeguarding cultural sovereignty, and imagining alternative futures. 

“When people become their own media producers, they begin to bring their voices into the public sphere,” she says. “Little by little, they start gaining political agency.” 

In mainstream outlets, she notes, coverage of marginalized communities is often “myopic, limited, stigmatized, stereotypical, or nonexistent.” Community media offers people the space for self-representation, a foundation of cultural sovereignty.

It also opens room for an imaginative freedom rarely afforded to commercial outlets. “Community media producers do not have to abide by conventions; they are not constrained by ratings or by the need to be ‘mainstream,’” Rodríguez says. This allows communities to experiment with new narratives, new presents, and new futures.

Philadelphia’s community media landscape offers ample examples of these dynamics at work.

Why is Philadelphia’s community media scene so vibrant? Just look at its history

Cover of A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, the first Black counter-narrative published in the United States. Retrieved from the Harvard Library

In November 1793, as Philadelphia recovered from the yellow fever pandemic that killed one in every ten residents, printer Mathew Carey published A Short Account of the Malignant Fever, Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia. His pamphlet was key in documenting the experiences of Philadelphians as they navigated the public health crisis. However, it also repeated a damaging narrative: Carey accused Black nurses of having “eagerly seized” the demand for care and of “extorting” high fees. 

Within months, two Black leaders, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, responded. In January 1794, they published A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, refuting Carey’s allegations. 

“We are solicited, by a number of those who feel themselves injured thereby […] to step forward and declare facts as they really were,” they wrote. Research by Philadelphia-based journalist and scholar Linn Washington has recognized the pamphlet as the first Black counter-narrative published in the United States.

Philadelphia has a long tradition of communities correcting the record and demanding change. The first petition against slavery in the colonies was drafted in the city in 1688. Philadelphia also birthed the country’s two oldest continuously published African American newspapers, The Christian Recorder (1852) and The Philadelphia Tribune (1884), which played vital roles in reuniting families following emancipation, and ending school segregation. 

That legacy continues today in a vibrant ecosystem of community media makers. 

Media at the hands of the community: creating beyond profit

A defining feature of community media is its independence from commercial pressures. Because it is not driven by profit, community media can prioritize public participation, collective storytelling, and experimentation. This openness, Rodríguez notes, is what enables community producers to “challenge dominant assumptions and imagine new possibilities for their communities.”

One of Philadelphia’s longest-running community media spaces is Scribe Video Center. Founded in 1982 by filmmaker Louis Massiah, Scribe was created to make filmmaking tools and training accessible to everyday Philadelphians. 

“Our roots were really as an educational institution and a place where people could work together collaboratively,” Massiah says. Today, Scribe offers workshops and programs for people of all ages. One example is Power Politics, a multimedia project documenting Black and Puerto Rican political empowerment in Philadelphia from World War II to the present. The archive includes more than 150 clips that provide key lessons learned from these movements.

For Massiah, the need for spaces like Scribe stems from the limitations of corporate and government-run media, which he says are “not necessarily democratic, or not necessarily fully accessible.” 

PhillyCAM, Philadelphia’s public access television station, operates with a similar mission. Designated by the city to run its public access network, PhillyCAM also offers workshops and community engagement opportunities for residents to create their own content. 

“Media is like a conduit for community building,” says Laura Deutch, PhillyCAM’s education director. People come in from different backgrounds and experiences, she notes, but “they’re here because they have a shared goal of wanting to learn, meaning to tell a particular story, and I think that that’s unique.”

Because Scribe and PhillyCAM sit outside commercial logic, community members can produce media without the constraints that shape mainstream outlets. “We don’t have ads, we don’t have editorial boards,” Deutch says. “It’s a fairly seamless, transparent process in terms of how people can produce content for the channel, very different from how other media operates.” This freedom supports not only creative experimentation but also the ability to produce work without fear of censorship.

Massiah argues this openness is fundamental to democracy. “It is a really important way that democracy works, that people can express their own cares and interests and present their own understandings to other people.”

The idea of creating media outside profit-driven structures is also central to Termite TV Collective. Named for termites’ ability to collectively carve their own paths, the Collective experiments with video technologies to create community-rooted media. Their independence allows them to center relationships over production deadlines. 

“Spending the time to build relationships, to build dialogue, that is such a key aspect of community-engaged media,” says co-director Anula Shetty.

Shetty notes that community media can shift how neighbors see one another. In Places of Power, a project that amplifies the stories of marginalized communities in Philadelphia, Termite TV profiled the Penny Candy Store run by Nandi and Khalid Muhammad, who turned their home into a safe haven for neighborhood children. The piece changed how the community saw them. 

“The beauty of this work,” Shetty says, “is seeing that transformation. Suddenly people became aware of her, and she became this leader.”

Anula Shetty sharing pictures from the Penny Candy Store project with journalist Ariel Goodman at the People’s Media Camp organized by The People’s Media Record, October 3-5, 2025. Picture courtesy of People’s Media Record, taken by Luiza Barreto.

“It ain’t going to bleed over here to lead:” The role of hyperlocal newsrooms in community media

The community component of media is not unique to educational and experimental spaces like Scribe, PhillyCAM, or Termite TV Collective. At the Germantown Info Hub, reporting goes hand in hand with being in community. 

“We’re still going to coffee shops. We’re still going to libraries,” says Rasheed Z. Ajamu, Editor for Germantown’s hyperlocal newsroom. “We make sure people know what we’re doing and that the stories they want to hear are being sourced, and that they can connect with us and make news with us.”

The participatory approach to community newsrooms doesn’t just reshape how stories are made, it also reshapes what stories get told. Hyperlocal newsrooms, Ajamu argues, provide context and stories that larger outlets can’t, because those reporters often lack the focus or lived experience to capture local realities. 

“It ain’t going to bleed over here to lead,” he said, referencing the industry phrase “If it bleeds, it leads,” which fuels a heavy focus on crime coverage. “If we have one gun violence incident in a week, the Info Hub has already posted four or five other articles that have nothing to do with gun violence,” Ajamu noted. “It’s deconstructing the narrative that only bad things happen in Philadelphia, and in our neighborhoods.” 

Community Newsrooms Responding to Needs of Their Communities

From left to right: Zulma Guzman, Evelyn Toriz, Mercy Mosquera, and Tania Solis, the four reporters with Voz Colectiva. Photo courtesy of 2PuntosPlatform.

For Evelyn Toriz Moreno, the impact of Voz Colectiva, the community newsroom she’s part of, became clear after hearing a listener say, “If this had come out in my time, I wouldn’t have suffered like I did. I thought domestic violence was just part of marriage.” Before Voz Colectiva, Toriz was a volunteer providing community services to Latinas in Norristown. When a woman asked for help escaping her abusive partner, Toriz realized the resources for women who didn’t speak English were almost non-existent. 

In response to the language-access gap, Voz Colectiva launched in 2023 to provide information, resources, and prevention tools around domestic violence tailored for Latinas. Beyond distributing information, the newsroom has pushed service organizations to expand resources beyond English. 

“We have pressured through talks and meetings so that women who don’t speak English have access to these resources,” Toriz said. Over the past year, Toriz has seen signs of change.

While Voz Colectiva works to address the needs of Latinas, The Philly Download is similarly focused on serving a specific community: Black Philadelphians. 

“The audiences we center are Black Philadelphians between 18 and 45. But of course, folks of other backgrounds are invited to the cookout,” said Cassie Owens, Editor-in-Chief and Executive Director.

Owens has long examined how journalism’s crime coverage harms Black and Brown communities, especially in Philadelphia. As both a critic and a practitioner, she is focused on rethinking newsroom processes to reduce harm. 

“What does practice change look like for us to have the journalism we need?” she asks. Owens is a founder of the Philadelphia Safer Journalism Project and edited the Safer Journalism Code of Ethics.

Executive Director & Editor-in-Chief, Cassie Owens (left) and Senior Advisor, Ernest Owens (right), holding a copy of the first print issue of The Philly Download 

For Owens, many of the answers come from looking backward. That ethos shaped The Philly Download’s first print zine, which intentionally draws on Black Philadelphia’s history. “We’re going to tap back into history and folks who we’ve admired or looked up to,” Owens said. Decisions like featuring Octavius Catto overlooking the city on the cover, or choosing a font named Bayard in honor of Bayard Rustin, signal the newsroom’s commitment to learning from those who came before. According to Owens, as the Philly Download thinks of how to document the times we’re in, they’re asking themselves, “how do we continue to learn from people who came before us?”

Zines: media out of reach from digital censorship  

With increased social media surveillance under the Trump administration, zines –– self-published, non-commercial booklets –– provide an alternative to the highly controlled digital scene. Karen Lowry, president of The Soapbox, a membership-based community print studio, says zines offer an “unfiltered view of somebody’s perspective or experience that social media and AI can’t really touch or manipulate.”

The Soapbox provides equipment, workshops, and space for people to create printed media. Zines, Lowry says, remain a vital tool for sharing information offline. “They’re a great way for people to disseminate information in a way that’s easily accessible and reproducible without relying on digital means.” The studio is also a hub for political expression, with some members using its equipment to print posters for protests.

Like other forms of community media, the non-commercial nature of zines frees creators from many of the constraints shaping mainstream content. “They’re not proprietary or copyrighted, usually,” Lowry explains.

Recently, Lowry has seen an uptick in politically oriented zines, alongside work centered on joy and community care. “People are really trying to focus on the aspects of our lives that bring us together right now,” she says.

People’s Media Fund, “a major benefit in Philadelphia” 

It’s not possible to talk about the community media scene in Philadelphia without mentioning the Peoples Media Fund (PMF). “A major benefit Philadelphia has is the People’s Media Fund,” Massiah says. Formerly known as the Independent Public Media Foundation, PMF funds a significant portion of the city’s community media, granting more than $4 million to over 100 initiatives in 2025 alone.

PMF was created in 2019 after the sale of WYBE, a public television station known for prioritizing media’s role in strengthening communities. When WYBE was auctioned for $131.5 million, the station transformed into a private foundation dedicated to sustaining the type of media work it once produced. 

“We have the privilege of being able to fund many different community media and memory initiatives,” says Rodríguez, who sits on PMF’s board. Its grantees range from longstanding institutions like PhillyCAM and Scribe to small-scale projects like independent films.

Limitations to community media: “Parks, libraries, and community media should be at the same level”

Still, even with PMF’s substantial investments, funding remains one of the biggest limitations for community media. “All of us are going for the same funding,” Ajamu says. Owens echoes the challenge. “There’s a surplus of smaller newsrooms that could use more support. Newsrooms with talented people speaking truth to power and telling stories that need to be told,” she notes. For community media to meet that demand, she adds, stable resources are essential. “You want to be able to produce the best thing every single time to meet the needs of communities that have been craving to be, not just documented with integrity, but documented in style.”

Rodríguez points to a deeper structural challenge: communication is not treated as a public right. “Parks, libraries, and community media should be at the same level,” she says, arguing that just as public parks and libraries aren’t expected to turn a profit, community media should not be burdened with financial expectations.

The same noncommercial nature that makes community media innovative and free from corporate constraints also poses a limitation: these outlets often lack the visibility, advertising power, or promotional reach of mainstream media, making them less known and less used than they could be. 

“We’re only 15 years old as an organization, but I feel like people should know that we’re Philadelphia’s television station, you know?” says Deutch. Massiah raises a similar concern — that people don’t always see themselves as entitled to use community media spaces, especially those not driven by profit. 

“They don’t give themselves permission to create,” he reflects. “They think that any kind of activity has to be about making money.” For him, part of the work is helping people understand what community media makes possible: “letting people understand that it’s a power and to take advantage of it.”