LION Membership Criteria

Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers helps member organizations build stronger, more sustainable news businesses. We do this by providing coaching, training, member benefits and connections to our growing community of news entrepreneurs in the US and Canada. 

Learn more about our membership benefits, pricing and how to apply.

Here is the criteria our staff currently uses to evaluate membership applications and renewing members:

Local content

The majority of your publication’s content must be focused on providing original, local news and information to a specific audience in the U.S. or Canada. 

This means that your publication is aiming to fulfill at least one of the following missions:

• Providing a geographically-constrained audience (neighborhood, city, county, etc) with relevant news and information. 
• Providing an identity-based audience with news, information and/or resources through a lens that is specifically relevant to that audience (ex: a diaspora or immigrant community or people who identify as LGBTQIA).   
• Providing topic specific news for a local audience

Independent Ownership

Independence is a core value of LION Publishers. We require that members are privately owned and not primarily or majority owned by a publicly traded company, newspaper chain, hedge fund or private equity firm and/or political or religious institution.

• This can include public media if an independent publication is acquired by a public media entity but the publication maintains editorial and financial independence.
• College-based publications are also welcome but must demonstrate they are independently run and have independent control over their budget. 

LION will consider membership applications from publishers that run more than one site. If your operations staff is shared between publications, we will consider you for a single membership. If the staff is separate, we will contact you about applying for membership for each site. 

If your revenue model includes bidding on government contracts for community outreach, focus groups, etc or you receive government funding to support reaching certain communities, it is a requirement for LION membership that you disclose that on your site.

Online

Your publication is digital and you are focused on growing a digital news business. LION does not offer services, resources or support for building or maintaining print products. 

News

When reviewing applications, LION staff will look for evidence that a news business is committed to accuracy and transparency.

Accuracy

• Your reporting is fact-based and accurate.
• You have a publicly posted corrections policy and/or easily accessible contact information for reporters and editors  

Transparency about funding 

• You’re clear with your audience about your funding and revenue sources.
  • Non-profits: You post your 990 IRS form and/or donor list
  • For-profits: You clearly label advertising and sponsored content

Transparency about people  

• LION staff carefully examine publications and/or news products for the following: your readers can easily find out who you are, the mission and values of your publication or news product, and why they should trust you (the best way to meet this standard is to have a detailed About page or section in your digital product).
• All content should be bylined. Even if you are the only person who writes for your site, individual stories must have bylines with full names.
• Any aggregated or curated content must credit and/or link to the original source (ex: an announcement from a local college, stories from other publications, etc).
• You clearly label opinion pieces and byline opinion pieces.

We encourage you to disclose any affiliations that might impact perceptions about the independence of your journalism. 

• Transparency about political affiliation: If you are seeking to hold public office, are currently an elected official, or have held public office in the past, you disclose those affiliations to your audience. Our team understands that in many communities civic-minded business leaders and entrepreneurs often run for office or hold political office, but we expect that you will disclose that when applying and make that transparent to your current and potential readers, advertisers and neighbors.
• Transparency about holding positions on boards, committees and other groups that hold power in your community.
• Transparency about AI tools: You disclose to your audience (ex: on your About page or individual stories) when you use AI tools for reporting and distribution of your journalism (examples: creating images, copyediting, fact checking, etc) *This is an evolving criteria. Our goal is to encourage transparency to audiences about the use of AI tools. 

Additional Criteria

Active Publishing: You are consistently publishing original content 

LION now requires that members and potential members demonstrate they have launched a viable news product and are regularly publishing. LION members have a range of publishing models – from releasing packages of investigative stories to daily posts. To evaluate this criteria, our team will look at whether prospective members have published at least one original story a month on average for at least the past 3 months. 

Financial Sustainability: You are trying to generate revenue.

This doesn’t mean that the publication has to be your primary source of income, but that you are trying to make the publication financially sustainable in some way. LION staff will look for evidence you are building and/or maintaining a business by considering your reported revenue, publishing and details in your application. 

Community Engagement: Your publication demonstrates an effort to promote engagement with your audience.

Our team looks for examples in your publication that you are offering your audience a chance to engage with you and/or your team to ensure your stories are reflective of your community.