Photo: Gil Asakawa
Kati Kokal was at The Palm Beach Post when the newspaper's owner, Gannett, began making a first round of layoffs that would affect 3% of its U.S. workforce, about 400 workers. About a week earlier, she had begun to organize a community aid response. When the layoffs started, she got 100 replies to a tweet saying 'If you're laid off (direct message) and I'll send you this Google Form.' Other journalists who wanted to help also reached out and the network was born. "We had a jobs team, we had a needs team, we had a financial support team, a moral support team…. It really created a space of compassion and care where a lot of times we find a lot of anonymity in media layoffs." By the time a second round of layoffs happened, Kokal and her 23 volunteers were ready. Kokal made the network her innovation project for the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship, and it won a cash prize at the fellowship's May closing summit.
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