On Wednesday, ProPublica announced the newsrooms, projects and journalists for its second-year class of the Local Reporting Network.
The project, which launched in 2018, began with seven newsrooms. The local reporting network covers one year’s salary and benefits for reporters and brings them together with ProPublica editors and resources.
Ken Ward Jr., an investigative reporter at West Virginia’s Charleston Gazette-Mail, was part of the first class and will continue working with the network. This year, he was awarded a Genius Grant from the MacArthur Foundation. He’s one of seven local journalists in the 2019 class who will cover government-based projects.
He’s joined by journalists from an online site, newspapers and a public radio station. They include:
- Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, (Hartford) Connecticut Mirror
- David Bernstein, The (Arlington Heights, Illinois) Daily Herald
- Alfred Miller, Louisville (Kentucky) Courier-Journal
- Joseph Cranney, The (Charleston, South Carolina) Post and Courier
- Nancy Solomon, New York’s WNYC
- Jason Pohl, The Sacramento (California) Bee
Another eight journalists from newsrooms around the country will be part of the network covering general subjects. They are:
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News
- Rachel Otwell, (Urbana) Illinois Newsroom
- Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting (Jackson)
- Wendi C. Thomas, MLK50, Memphis, Tennessee
- Joan Meiners, Nola.com | The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune
- Lynn Arditi, The Public’s Radio (Providence, Rhode Island)
- Connor Sheets, Reckon by AL.com | The Birmingham (Alabama) News
In a press release, ProPublica pointed out results from the network’s first year, including an investigation from Indiana’s South Bend Tribune, which led to a police chief’s resignation; and calls for changes to laws concerning the criminally insane after an investigation by the Malheur Enterprise in Vale, Oregon.
