Sandy Bainum & Stewart W. Bainum Jr.

Stewart W. Bainum Jr. and his wife Sandy Bainum have set an ambitious goal for their philanthropy: to revive local news in the U.S. “If the stories on one side of town aren't being shared with people that are on the other side of town, often polarization increases, understanding goes down, empathy goes down,” says Stewart, chairman of Choice Hotels International and a former member of the Maryland legislature.

The Bainums pledged $50 million to fund the 2022 creation of the Baltimore Banner, a nonprofit newsroom focused on local coverage. The nearly four-year-old start-up is growing and last year won a Pulitzer Prize. But that was just the start.

On April 14, the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, the nonprofit the couple founded to launch the Banner, announced that it had reached an agreement to purchase the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one of the oldest newspapers in the U.S., which was in danger of shutting down the following month. The Bainums have committed another $30 million for the Pittsburgh venture and to continue building the Banner.

 Bainum Jr. says that their goal from the beginning was to provide high-quality, independent journalism and to figure out a sustainable business model for local news. He says Venetoulis would be “very discriminating and careful” about taking on additional cities—but he also doesn’t rule it out.