When URL Media launched in early 2021, we were still in a pandemic, and much of the media was confronting its role in upholding and enforcing systemic racism.
“That was the soil that was being tilled that we planted URL in,” said Sara Lomax, URL’s co-founder and president and the CEO of WURD Radio, a Black-owned Pennsylvania talk radio station.
URL, which stands for “Uphold, Respect, Love,” was created by two media executives working in independent media who saw potential in that space if those newsrooms got the right support.
“We realized that there were a lot of really great independent media organizations that were trusted and beloved by their communities but did not have the financial resources to scale, did not have the ability to execute and grow at the levels that we deserved and wanted to,” Lomax said, “so we came up with this idea of creating a network of independent media organizations that serve communities of color. We would be this kind of village.”
That village started with eight newsrooms, including WURD and Epicenter NYC from URL co-founder and CEO and former CNN Digital executive S. Mitra Kalita. Now entering its fifth year with 37 newsrooms, URL recently announced that the village boundaries will expand, thanks to a $5 million investment from the Knight Foundation.
The three-year grant includes:
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Growing to 100 publishing partners
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Adding 250 content creators and trusted messengers
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Support for shared tech platforms
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Financial and operational support
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The expansion of three editorial verticals, URWell, URHealth and URHired
When we spoke earlier this week, I asked the two founders about where they began and where they are now.
“We made some moves based on how media was looking then,” Kalita said, “and I think a lot of them paid off.”
One of the smartest, she said: “We knew we were in a moment where social traffic was waning.”
Rather than chasing audiences across platforms owned by other organizations, URL looked for the common denominator across cultures and generations, and chose email as the way to best connect with people.
An early miss, Kalita said: “I mistakenly thought scale could fix a lot of our problems.”
Instead, she said, being known and trusted in a community is the actual asset — not a thing to scale, but a thing to deepen.
And because the newsrooms URL works with are small, they’re able to pivot quickly, which 2025 has often required.
“We live at that cross-section of media and multiculturalism,” Lomax said. “And all of the things that we have focused our time and energy on and have been dedicated to support, there've been attempts to completely dismantle.”
Now, URL and the newsrooms in its network get to start 2026 with a transformative grant. And that grant, Lomax said, is a lifeline.
“It has the potential to provide resources and runway and support that these organizations need so we can make it through this cold, hard winter that we have been in and make it into spring.”
The work includes working with local content creators and (a term I hadn’t heard before but love) trusted messengers. It’s work that local talk radio stations, including WURD, have always done, Kalita said.
“We’ve got to have an inclusive approach in order to have an informed citizenry,” Lomax said. “We don’t all have to be informed the same way.”
Working with creators and messengers allows URL and the newsrooms it works with the ability to find people who are influential and trusted — even at micro levels — who are also providing valid, accurate information.
“A lot of us don’t have that luxury of both innovating and looking around the corner,” Kalita said.
The grant means they’ll get the room to do both in a space that remains critical.
“Local news is the only place that we have a chance to still dialogue, to still exercise democracy,” Kalita said. “It is the only place that I think has a chance.”
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