Mississippi Today
Mississippi Today is dedicated to providing Mississippians with reporting that inspires active interest in their state and equips them to engage in community life.
Criminal justice
The Connecticut Mirror
The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet with a very clear mission: Produce deep reporting on government policies and politics, to become an invaluable resource for anyone who lives, works or cares about Connecticut, and to hold our policymakers accountable for their decisions and actions. The Mirror’s staff consists of award-winning editors and reporters with decades of experience in Connecticut newsrooms or working for other national or state news operations.
The City
The City is a nonprofit New York digital news outlet dedicated to accountability reporting that serves a wide cross-section of New Yorkers. The push for the site, set to debut in early 2019, came in response to the stark reduction in strong local news sources. The effort, funded so far by major foundations and civic-minded individuals, is led by Editor in Chief Jere Hester, a former NY Daily News city editor, and Executive Director Kai Falkenberg, former First Deputy Commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and a past Forbes newsroom lawyer. The site will be featured on New York magazine’s homepage, and the outlet’s audience-building efforts range from social media outreach to neighborhood-based town hall-style events. Our goal is to break news — and get action — through beat and investigative reporting focused on Albany, City Hall and the city’s five boroughs.
Associated Press
About the News Organization: The Associated Press is a global news agency that began 172 years ago as a cooperative of five New York City newspapers. We have 263 locations in more than 100 countries, providing journalism to roughly 15,000 media outlets around the world. AP sets standards for ethics and excellence. AP has won 52 Pulitzer Prizes, including the 2016 gold medal for Public Service for an investigation into labor abuses in the seafood industry, reports that freed more than 2,000 slaves. We cover every single statehouse, and have beat teams for topics such as immigration, education and state government. AP’s seven news bureaus in the northeast U.S. provide vital local and regional news to 378 newsrooms.
Closed Position: The Report for America corps member works in the New York state capitol alongside veteran statehouse staff to report on criminal justice issues across the state, including issues of poverty, race and changing policy on who is prosecuted, how they are incarcerated and how politics in Trump’s America are influencing those trends. The reporter has access to colleagues on the national state government reporting team, data experts and a network of colleagues with deep experience reporting on government. AP’s team of reporters in Washington, D.C. also helps the reporter understand the connections between state and local trends. The reporter produces a balance of spot news and enterprise work, with an emphasis on data-driven stories that can be distributed to AP customers around the state.
Preferred Skills: Data journalism
Detroit Free Press
The Detroit Free Press primarily covers three counties in southeast Michigan, including robust coverage of the city of Detroit. Founded in 1831, it’s the oldest business in Detroit. The Detroit Free Press has earned 10 Pulitzer Prizes in its history, including one for exposing lies and corruption in the administration of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Its role is to serve as watchdog and community convener.
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is an award-winning investigative news outlet based in Madison, Wisconsin. The mission of the WCIJ is to increase the quality, quantity and understanding of investigative journalism to foster an informed citizenry and strengthen democracy. The organization collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, commercial media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, training students in classroom settings. Collaborative partners have included ProPublica, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Center for Public Integrity, Reveal, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, Madison Magazine, HuffPost and other outlets.
Nashville Public Radio
About the News Organization: Nashville Public Radio’s flagship news station, WPLN 90.3, is a dynamic local news provider that reaches more than 20 counties in Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky. With a potential audience of over 2 million listeners, many of whom are located in rural areas outside of Metropolitan Nashville, our content is distributed through multiple delivery platforms and channels, via FM, AM, HD radio, computer streams, a robust website and podcasts. WPLN has an award-winning news team of 10 journalists: two editors, five reporters, two host/reporters and a digital director. Its mission is to create stories that help our audience understand the most important issues facing the community.
About the Position: This Report for America corps member focuses on identifying underlying trends and critical deficiencies in the criminal justice system in our region. This person explores and reports on issues that can dramatically affect people’s lives — like bail bonds, ICE detention policies, or jail fees — but are rarely reported with depth. Some big stories may include: two recent high profile police shootings; the development of a new community oversight board for police; our local school district’s attempt to reduce the school-to-prison pipeline using restorative justice; Nashville’s anomaly of experiencing very low unemployment but high rates of crime; and the impact of North Nashville having the highest rate of incarceration in the country. The reporter works in both text and audio, and receives mentoring from an award-winning news team with extensive experience in every facet of journalism, including breaking news, audio storytelling, radio and web writing, ethics and social media reporting. WPLN has a long history of excellence in training young reporters.