Report for America unveils 2024 Impact Report

 

Report for America unveiled its 2024 Impact Report last night to a room filled with journalists, media industry leaders, philanthropists, and other supporters of local journalism at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. While the focus of the evening was panel discussions on growing statewide support for local news in Minnesota, sharing the report was an opportunity to underscore the unique benefits the nonprofit program brings to local journalism across the nation.

“We’ve had a year of extraordinary impact that we’re excited to share,” said Kim Kleman, Report for America’s executive director. “Report for America corps members have produced stories with real impact that have improved communities. Our host newsrooms are raising money and becoming more sustainable. And we’ve found that the community trust built by our work is lasting.”

Launched in 2017, Report for America is a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. The report highlights how Report for America has recruited, placed and supported more than 600 early-career reporters since then, in newsrooms across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Guam — yielding more than 80,000 stories that might’ve otherwise gone untold. 

Additionally, it shows how Report for America has been one of the biggest bridges of support toward creating the sustainable newsrooms of tomorrow, helping nearly 400 newsrooms raise $30 million in local donations while investing $30 million in direct salary subsidy, training and other support.

At a time when the industry struggles with representation, the report also shares how Report for America has developed one of the nation’s largest pipelines for journalists of color, with nearly half its corps members identifying as journalists of color and roughly two-thirds are women.

Above all, the report showcases the impact of the corps’ reporting in communities large and small. Among them, Rose Lundy’s reporting for the Maine Monitor exposed the glaring number of violations of abuse and neglect against the elderly in residential care facilities — leading legislators to close loopholes in the state’s laws. 

In Atlanta, Lautaro Grinspan has covered immigration issues for three years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his newsroom’s first full-time reporter on the beat. Grinspan is multilingual, has covered diverse communities, and introduced them to other readers with ongoing, nuanced, deep reporting.

“He has used his language and reporting skills to educate our readers on immigrants who live in their communities and the challenges they face,” said his editor, Laura Weaver. “His persistence and patience give us a glimpse into their daily lives.”

According to Kira Limer, Report for America’s impact and evaluation manager, readers will come away from this report knowing what Report for America does and how they do it. 

“Our corps members are agents of change—supporting new reporting in newsrooms and bringing trust, audiences, and increased revenue to newsrooms to keep the journalism sustainable,” Limer said. “My biggest hope is that the report lets these incredible individual journalists shine while also fostering an understanding of how our entire program works.

Based on the research, the Report for America program is a powerful springboard for the corps members — most of whom are in the early stages of their careers.

“We track the careers of our alumni over time to understand where they go, and what happens after Report for America, and 82% of our alumni have stayed in journalism,” Limer said. “This metric tells us how successful we are at giving journalists the firm footing they need to sustain their careers.”

In addition to the success stories, the report is also forward-looking — laying out Report for America’s vision for the next five years.

“Beyond adding corps members, we look to work with hundreds more “lighthouse” newsrooms, local newsrooms of all types, that with our help can not only become even stronger but can demonstrate winning models of the future,” Kleman said. “We want to create a ripple effect that strengthens the entire industry.”

Report for America’s 2024 Impact Report can be found here.

About Report for America:

Report for America is a national service program that places talented emerging journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics and communities across the United States and its territories. By creating a new, sustainable model for journalism, Report for America provides people with the information they need to improve their communities, hold powerful institutions accountable, and restore trust in the media. Report for America is an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, an award-winning nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to rebuilding journalism from the ground up.