On #GivingTuesdayNow, consider a gift to The Spokesman-Review

You may have seen Editor Rob Curley’s column on Sunday, the one that praised The Spokesman-Review staff for its hard work on covering the coronavirus pandemic.

“At the heart of this newspaper is a group of great local journalists who give a damn,” he wrote. “They’ve told the stories of Eastern Washington and North Idaho with care and passion and skill.”

Local journalism is in our very marrow. It’s what we do day in and day out, covering schools boards and city councils, business issues and entertainment options. And when we do tackle the big national and global issues, it’s with an eye toward making that topic relevant to readers in Spokane, Reardan, Sandpoint and Chattaroy.

You’ve probably also heard that local journalism is at risk. As advertising dollars have migrated elsewhere or disappeared outright, local newspapers such as The Spokesman-Review have struggled. The pandemic has exacerbated that problem, and now newspapers across the country are laying off staff or instituting furloughs at a time when the need for good local reporting has never been more critical.

The Spokesman-Review has so far avoided reducing staff or cutting hours as a result of COVID-19, but in order to continue providing our readers with a full array of local news and features, we need your help.

Today is #GivingTuesdayNow, an offshoot of the #GivingTuesday fundraising effort held between Thanksgiving and Christmas. #GivingTuesdayNow was created in response to the emergency created by COVID-19.

If you subscribe to The Spokesman-Review, thank you, thank you, thank you. We are deeply appreciative of your continued support of our journalism. If you don’t subscribe and would like to, we have options in several price points available by clicking here. If you do subscribe and would like to help more, please consider a donation to the Civic Journalism and Community Engagement Fund created for our benefit by the Innovia Foundation. You can make a contribution online here, or send a check to The Spokesman-Review newsroom, c/o Mary Beth Donelan, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA, 99210-2160.

Your contributions to The Spokesman-Review will help fund, among other vital projects, the continued COVID-19 reporting of rural health reporter Arielle Dreher, as well as the government reporting of Orion Donovan-Smith, who will cover Washington, D.C., and Laurel Demkovich, who will join our team in Olympia. These three come to us thanks to Report for America. Your donations also will help fund the literary and arts reporting of Stephanie Hammett, as well as the eventual return of live, in-person programming from our Northwest Passages Book Club.

We understand these are scary times. But with your help, we can continue in our primary role – to shine a light in the darkness.