Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund continues investment in WURD Radio

Funding amplified coverage of Philadelphia’s BIPOC tech and innovation sector

July 26, 2024

The Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund invested $105,000 in WURD Radio to continue its reporting and documentation of Philadelphia’s BIPOC technology and innovation sector. 

The funding supported WURD’s reporting on the creativity that fuels Philadelphia’s Black startups and propels them to success. WURD has produced thoughtful and explanatory journalism, topical radio segments, and virtual and in-person events connecting local leaders and innovators across Philadelphia’s BIPOC innovation ecosystem. 

Recent highlights include a partnership between WURD and Technical.ly, a local tech and entrepreneurship news outlet, to create a monthly segment called “Technically Speaking” to discuss a Philadelphia tech story of the moment. This feature was part of WURD’s broader coverage of the Black tech ecosystem and economy in Philadelphia. 

WURD also organized a signature event during Philly Tech Week titled “Artificial Intelligence, Black Realities,” a networking mixer and panel discussion that focuses on developments in AI technology and the impacts and opportunities they present for Black communities. The discussion, moderated by technology expert Stephanie Humphrey, highlighted how AI can potentially reinforce systemic racism, equity of opportunity in tech innovation systems, and the impact of AI on Black workers and unemployment.

“With our audience curious and at times concerned about developments in AI, WURD is determined to ask and answer questions that center how this technology will impact Black people specifically,” said WURD Radio General Manager Ashanti Martin. “The journalism and reporting WURD undertook as part of this investment showed us that marginalized groups should get involved in research and development at the inception of new technologies.”

Through this grant, the Fund helped WURD establish a regular stream of information and insight across Philadelphia’s rising Black and Latinx innovation ecosystems while working collaboratively with other organizations to expand the reach and impact of this work. This includes working with Black-led media to increase and centralize the visibility of Philadelphia’s Black and Latinx business ecosystems as part of the central conversations on inclusive future of work and business.

In 2020, WURD Radio and the Plug came together in a collaborative pilot partnership, supported by the Knight-Lenfest Fund, to lay a foundation for tech and innovation news reporting across Philadelphia’s Black and Latinx business communities. In 2021, Knight-Lenfest provided an additional two-year grant to further this work. In this latest grant, the Fund is supporting WURD Radio to continue leading these efforts.

This new grant also builds on the Fund’s previous support, in partnership with the Independence Public Media Foundation’s Community Voices Fund, for WURD Radio’s ‘Lively-HOOD’ Initiative to report and connect Black Philadelphians to critical job and career resources and provide support for its multimedia coverage and conversations around environmental racism

About The Knight-Lenfest Fund

With a focus on sustainability and equity, The Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund was designed to strengthen local journalism at scale, by supporting journalistic excellence and serving the information needs of communities. The Knight-Lenfest Fund collaborated with news organizations, leaders and communities to grow capacity and meet journalism’s technology, business, and audience realities of the future. It believes that journalism is at its best when it is of service. The Knight-Lenfest Fund was a joint venture of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism.

About WURD

WURD Radio is the only Black-owned and operated talk radio station in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2023, over the past two decades WURD has evolved into a multi-media, multi-platform communications company that reaches deeply into the Black community through radio, video, events, digital and social media. It is considered the go-to media channel to engage, interact and connect with Philadelphia’s Black community. Tune in to WURD Radio on 900AM and 96.1FM in Philadelphia, at wurdradio.com and on the WURD Radio app. Watch WURD TV via Facebook, Twitch and wurdradio.com. Follow WURD on Instagram and X @onwurd and at facebook.com/forwurd.