GRANTS, N.M. – Cibola County readers have a new way to explore New Mexico’s local news landscape, an interactive online tool built to answer a simple but increasingly urgent question: who is still covering communities at the ground level, and where are the gaps?
ThetooliscalledtheNew Mexico News Map, a publicservice project commissioned by the New Mexico Local News Fund. Paired with a statewide report, the map documents local outlets across NewMexicothatmeetcriteria for ongoing, original, factual coverage.
The project is meant to help readers, journalists, policymakers, and funders see the state’s news ecosystem with more clarity as a practical look at where reliable community reporting exists and where it is at risk.
The map itself is designed to be easy to navigate. Visit https://www.nmnewsmap.org / or google search NM News Map and it will pop up.
Users can zoom into their region, click an outlet cluster, and select individual outlets to pull up a detailed information card. Those profiles include where an outlet is based, what counties it serves, its publishing frequency, its primary medium (like, the
is a newspaper instead of a radio station), and other identifying details.
The map also allows users to filter outlets by categories such as medium, language, businessmodel,andan “impact level” rating.Another feature lets users apply U.S. Census characteristics to counties, providing additional context about the communities being served.
One of the central features of each outlet profile is a “Community Impact Level,” described by the project as a measure of an outlet’s breadth
and depth of local coverage.
For Cibola County, the map includes an entry for the
CibolaCitizen, describing it as a weekly newspaper with notable depth for its size and strong coverage of local schools, sports, and government, with contributions that include reporting by Grants High School student journalists. The listing identifies the Citizen as a for-profit organization based in Grants and serving Cibola County, with a primary medium listed as digital and a weekly publishing frequency. The map categorizes the Citizen as a “Strong Resource,” noting that it regularly provides relevant reporting on key community issues.
The broader project is the result of a collaboration between media professionals and educators working in partnership with the New Mexico Local News Fund. The map is managed by former UNM professor Michael Marcotte and current UNM journalism professor Gwyneth Doland, working alongside the Fund under Executive DirectorRashadMahmood. Support for the effort includes UNM’s Center for Regional Studies and Press Forward New Mexico, with additional in-kind support identified from New Mexico PBS, UNM Communication & Journalism, and MVM Consulting.
The map is of great value to New Mexico, a free press is the connective tissue between residents and the institutions that shape daily life – schools, law enforcement, local government, courts, infrastructure, public health, and the many local community organizations that keep this county running.
For Cibola County, it also serves as a reminder that consistent local reporting still takes real labor, real time, and real community backing.