Report for America announced eight new local newsrooms where it will place journalists in year-long reporting projects. Eighty-five newsrooms applied for the open spots.
Here are those newsrooms and their projects:
Dallas Morning News – Coverage of second-generation Hispanic immigrants
KRWG, Las Cruces, New Mexico – Coverage of education, health care, economic development and sustainability
The Macon (Georgia) Telegraph – Partnering with Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University on a project to increase reader trust
Chicago Sun-Times – Coverage of Chicago’s South and West side neighborhoods
Victoria (Texas) Advocate – Coverage of what Hurricane Harvey revealed about that area’s richest and poorest communities
Pittsburgh’s The Incline and Philadelphia’s Billy Penn – Coverage of state legislature
Mississippi Today – Coverage of public policy issues and a second volunteer will work as a photojournalist
Mississippi Public Broadcasting – Coverage of poverty’s impact on the community
According to a news release, “these news organizations were selected in an application process in which news organizations described major gaps in community coverage and how they would use a Report for America journalist to provide better coverage.”
Report for America started last year with the goal of getting 1,000 reporters in local newsrooms in the next five years. The program places reporters in newsrooms for one year and pays half that reporter’s salary.
It launched last September with positions at West Virginia Public Broadcasting, the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Charleston Gazette-Mail. The Charleston Gazette-Mail, which is also working with an investigative fellow from ProPublica, recently filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Two hundred and fifty people applied for RFA’s first three spots. You can apply for the next round here.
