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. 

LION members must 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). 

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. College-based publications are also welcome but must demonstrate they are independently run and have independent control over their budget.

Online

The publication and/or news product is primarily digital and publisher is focused on growing a digital news business.

News

When reviewing applications, LION staff look for evidence that a news business is committed to accuracy, transparency, and journalism ethics. Some examples we look for during review:

• Fact-based reporting with multiple named sources
• Consistently bylined, original stories 
• Clearly labeled opinion and analysis articles 
• Public corrections policies and contact information
• Aggregated content that is credited and links to the original source.

Additional Criteria

Active Publishing: You are consistently publishing original content 

LION’s membership includes publishers operating both nonprofit and for-profit businesses. Another key criteria when applying for membership or renewing is active publishing. LION requires that members and potential members demonstrate they have launched a viable news product and are regularly publishing.

In order to apply for membership, you must have published at least one original story (or newsletter, podcast, etc) a month on average for at least the past 3 months.

Ownership Structure 

LION welcomes a variety of ownership structures, including individuals operating sites, nonprofits and for-profit organizations. We will not accept 501(c)(4) publications as members. 

LION will consider membership applications from publishers that run more than one site, but participation in LION programs may be limited to the ownership group if each site does not independently manage their budget and finances.