The Journalism Support Exchange is a new matchmaking tool for local news outlets to get the help they need

Put a finger down if you’ve ever been in a journalism-related Slack and asked for recommendations or help with something, got a bunch of responses that you sifted through, only to find in the end that none of those recommendations actually matched your particular need.

It’s a common experience among media workers, and a new tool from Press Forward and Commoner Co. aims to get you the right help on time.

The Journalism Support Exchange (JSX), launched Wednesday, is a user-friendly, searchable database that media workers can query and browse to find the resources, tools, and experts they need to solve a particular problem. Commoner — a civic impact consultancy run by Anika Anand and Darryl Holliday — spent 2025 interviewing journalism leaders about the pros, cons, and challenges they’ve experienced with journalism support organizations (JSOs).

“News and information leaders face a paradox: The journalism support landscape has never been more robust, but it’s also confusing to navigate,” their announcement reads. “Figuring out who does what, which organizations might fit your specific needs, and how to actually connect with them can feel like a full-time job on top of your actual full-time job.”

The JSX is a first step toward transparency in the journalism support industry, showing “who is doing what, and for whom,” per the announcement.

There are more than 300 journalism support organizations in the database, organized by the type of support they offer, the issues they can address, the size of the news outlets they support, their geographic scope and location, and the cost of their services. Addressable issues are concrete and based on the needs that Commoner discovered in its surveys — things like financial management, audience engagement, legal support, strategic planning, and revenue streams. The Journalism Support Exchange also lets the service organizations add, edit, and customize their information in the database.

“The JSX gives us a real-time view of what newsrooms are looking for, in terms of support,” Commoner’s Holliday said in Press Forward’s announcement. “For local newsrooms, it’s a shortcut to find what they need. For funders and support organizations, it’s a roadmap to understand where we’re duplicating effort — and where we can build something new together.”

Find the Journalism Support Exchange here.