October 22, 2024 – Citing a shared mission, Report for America celebrates a recent investment of $20 million by Press Forward in 205 local news outlets, including one in every state and 23 current Report for America partners.
Press Forward is a national coalition investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms, close longstanding gaps in journalism coverage, advance public policy that expands access to local news, and to scale the infrastructure the sector needs to thrive. Report for America’s mission is to strengthen communities and democracy through local journalism that is truthful, fearless, fair and smart.
“This is invigorating news for local newsrooms, reporters and community members, as this deep and diverse investment in independent, non-partisan reporting is essential to our shared reimagining of what local news looks like,” said Kim Kleman, executive director for Report for America. “Addressing and closing local coverage gaps is what inspired the formation of The GroundTruth Project and launch of Report for America. That need persists, as does the need to fortify the local news outlets that will sustain this coverage into the future.”
Since launching in 2017, Report for America has placed 658 journalists in 371 newsrooms large and small across the country and helped those newsrooms raise more than $30 million from local donors to transform their business models and ecosystems.
“We’ve seen first-hand the transformational power of local newsroom investment, be it from funding like Press Forward’s Open Call, the infusion of talent and idealism of a next generation Report for America corps member, or revenue stream diversification support, as through our accelerator program,” said Morgan Baum, director of local news sustainability for Report for America. “While many newsrooms did not receive funding this round, I hope we can all celebrate the fact that $20 million is flowing directly into newsrooms across the country, including 23 current Report for America host newsrooms.”
Of the 205 newsrooms funded this recent Press Forward Open Call, many are Report for America alumni newsrooms and 23 are current newsroom partners, including:
Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting
Arizona Luminaria
Black Voice News
Dallas Free Press
Door County Knock
ecoRI News
El Tecolote
Henrico Citizen
Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis
KUCB
Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk
New Mexico In Depth Inc.
North Carolina Health News
Ouray County Plaindealer
Planet Detroit
Richland Source
The Lens
The Tributary
The TRiiBE
Tucson Sentinel
Underscore Native News
Uvalde Leader-News
Learn more about all 205 recipients and their reporting from Press Forward 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.