New platform to share ‘Common Ground’ from community ideas and solutions

Issue Media Group, a multilocal network of solutions-based, issues-focused digital publications, has launched a new national platform for increasing the reach and impact of its journalism.

Common Ground launched Sept. 15, curating content from across the IMG network and publishing online (www.fromcommonground.com), through a weekly email newsletter, and on social media. The newsletter alone reaches an audience of nearly 300,000 subscribers, and across all channels Common Ground has a potential reach of over 2 million readers annually. Consistent with IMG’s other sites, there are no paywalls: impact is achieved through reaching the broadest audience possible.

IMG’s journalism focuses on important but often undercovered issues such as community health, economic and neighborhood development, sustainability, and arts and culture. It approaches its storytelling from the perspective not just of policymakers but extraordinary people on the ground, working in the trenches, moving solutions forward – entrepreneurs, creative talent, and passionate world-changers.

Common Ground will be a platform to elevate those stories beyond local audiences, creating a place where communities share ideas, solutions, and inspiration. When a neighborhood innovates — from revitalizing housing to improving public transit — their success stories connect with others facing similar challenges. By linking local experiences into a larger, solutions-driven narrative, Common Ground helps communities learn from each other and move forward together.

Issue Media Group started in 2005 when founders Brian Boyle and Paul Schutt launched Model D as a weekly digital magazine serving Detroit. The city had been in steep decline, but Boyle and Schutt saw investment and envisioned a renaissance that media in the city at the time were not covering.

In the years that followed, similar additional publications were launched in cities such as Grand Rapids and Flint, Mich.; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Tampa, Fla. – again in cities where important local issues and solutions-oriented storytelling was needed. The arc of IMG also has coincided with the decline of legacy media and the rise of news deserts.

IMG now has 17 local and regional digital publications across Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Florida. Readers of those publications will see Common Ground-identified stories from around the network alongside local content. And readers signed up to receive newsletters from one of our publications will begin receiving a second Common Ground newsletter each week with the option to opt out if they do not wish to receive it.

“From time to time, we will hear people say they want more good news,” Issue Media Group CEO John Montgomery said. “True enough, people are suffering from news fatigue these days. But we at IMG don’t see ourselves simply as purveyors of good news. There is a difference between good news and solutions journalism. We must not ignore the problems and challenges in our communities and our country. We can’t solve these problems if we just turn away because we don’t want to hear bad news. ‘Common Ground’ will be a constructive place where we can instead be inspired and collectively pitch in and work that much harder to make our world a better place.”