A diverse group of established and seasoned journalists, writers, filmmakers and notable Asbury Park advocates and civic leaders have come together to form the Asbury Park Media Collective (APMC). The organization is new but the long-standing working relationships among the members, coupled with an impressive collective track record in civic media in Asbury Park and beyond provides a solid foundation for this new initiative.
Our mission is to identify, train, mentor and launch a new group of community reporters who will report and document news, public events and explore the public policies that shape the city of Asbury Park. The Collective shares the sentiments of Julie Burton, President of Women’s Media Center, when she espouses, “Who tells the story is every bit as important as what the story is — and often the former determines the latter.” We aim to create an incubator for emerging community reporters and local media makers.
The work our community reporters produce over the course of the training sessions — news articles, news broadcasts for radio, news videos and documentary short subjects, podcasts, and social media posts — will be published and disseminated through a website and our network of local media partners. APMC project will serve people who live in Asbury Park, and will prioritize the voices of residents who are underrepresented. The media we create together will specifically serve the Black and Haitian communities; Spanish-speaking residents; the LGBTQIA community; as well as, youth, elderly, those who are differently-abled, and long-term Asbury Park residents. We believe those most at risk of being displaced by hyper-gentrification.