Towns & cities

Akron Beacon Journal

The Akron Beacon Journal provides comprehensive news coverage primarily for Summit and Stark counties in post-industrial Northeast Ohio. We frequently publish deep-dive enterprise reports on a wide variety of topics. These newsroom also leads the joint news efforts of GateHouse Media in Northeast Ohio, which includes numerous other daily media sites and weekly publications. Overall, GateHouse serves 10 counties in Northeast Ohio and a population of 1.2 million residents. We also work closely with GateHouse’s Columbus Dispatch for Statehouse and regional news coverage.

100 Days in Appalachia

100 Days in Appalachia is a digital news publication born the day after the 2016 election in response to the national narrative that reduced our region to a handful of narrow stories. Our mission is to share the diverse stories of the 13 states that make up this region, which stretches from the Rust Belt to the Black Belt, by working with local voices to apply a cultural lens to what’s happening in our backyards and share what that means for the rest of the world.

KERA / The Texas Newsroom

NPR and Texas public radio stations collaborated to form the Texas News Hub. It’s the first step in a systemwide collaborative project to create a nationwide virtual public radio newsroom of 1,000-plus journalists. The collaboration includes two daily, hour-long statewide programs (Texas Standard and Think) and will soon include six daily statewide newscasts, and a statewide digital news desk. The Hub is working to hire and train freelance and small station reporters to provide news service to underserved communities in the state’s news deserts.

The Victoria Advocate

Established in 1846 – the same year the Republic of Texas joined the Union – the Victoria Advocate has a rich tradition of local ownership and stewardship of its community. It was named the Newspaper of the Year in 2014 by the Local Media Association.  

West Virginia Public Broadcasting

West Virginia Public Broadcasting is a public media dual licensee — it holds the sole statewide PBS and NPR licenses in West Virginia. WVPB covers West Virginia and many of the bordering counties of its five neighboring states. WVPB’s content output is primarily audio, but they also produce video for TV and digital platforms. They produce a live television show, The Legislature Today, every weekday during West Virginia’s 60-day legislative session. WVPB has a full-time staff of 52, with several part-time and paid intern positions. The mission of West Virginia Public Broadcasting is to educate, inform and inspire residents by telling West Virginia’s story. Closed Position: This Report for America corps member is based in Charleston, the state capital, and works under the mentorship of senior reporter, Dave Mistich, on the public affairs beat, including coverage of the legislative session. This reporter works primarily in audio. Outside of the legislative session, the focus is on the southern coalfields of West Virginia. This position fills a critical coverage gap for WVPB, while also contributing to government accountability reporting in the region.

Chicago Sun-Times

The Chicago Sun-Times is the legendary news voice of Chicago’s working class. The news organization was recently acquired by a diverse consortium of philanthropists, business leaders and Chicago area labor organizations.

Block Club Chicago

Block Club Chicago is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Chicago’s neighborhoods. The news organization’s mission is to cover the city through a truly block-level lens that encourages people to get involved at a local level — whether that’s through campaigning for a local school council seat or trying a family-owned restaurant instead of the new Olive Garden. Block Clubs seeks to build community through ground-level reporting of the city’s neighborhoods. Six full-time reporters are embedded in the communities they cover, which allows them to form lasting connections to the neighborhoods that don’t exist when reporters parachute in for a story. Currently, daily coverage is focused in clusters of neighborhoods throughout Chicago, including: Wicker Park, Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Pilsen, Back of the Yards, Little Village, Englewood, Chatham, Lincoln Square, Irving Park, the South Loop and parts of Downtown.

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.

The Advocate

About the News Organization: The Advocate is Louisiana’s largest daily newspaper, serving the cities of Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette, and their surrounding regions. The Advocate is committed to providing comprehensive coverage of local news, City Hall, the state house, politics, business, environment and other areas of general interest for our readers, in print and online. With a news and editorial staff of approximately 105 reporters, editors, designers, photographers and digital journalists, The Advocate is the largest daily newspaper in New Orleans and the only print news outlet committed to covering all aspects of the city. About the Position: This Report for America corps member covers healthcare and public health in south Louisiana, with a focus on the New Orleans metro region. Previously, there was not a single, full-time health reporter working for any newsroom in Louisiana, a state that sits near the bottom on nearly every U.S. public health metric. The story of healthcare is also often the story of poverty in America, and the lack of coverage of health in a poor state like Louisiana means important stories are slipping through the cracks. This journalist reports to the New Orleans Metro Editor and Managing Editor, and covers daily news related to all aspects of public health, including coverage of hospitals, public health officials and health agencies, academic research, and city, state, and national data. The reporter produces enterprise and feature stories for both print and online related to these and other topics. The Report for America corps member works in concert with experienced journalists that have complementary beats, such as education, business and City Hall, to create stories that have a broader impact.

Spectrum News Buffalo

Spectrum News Buffalo provides the Buffalo metropolitan and Western New York area with 24-hour local news, politics, features and weather seven days a week. Whether a sitting Congressman is indicted on federal charges, more than seven feet of lake effect snow blankets the region, or the Buffalo Sabres win a record 10 games in a row, we are on for viewers 24/7. Spectrum News Buffalo seeks to empower Western New Yorkers by providing guidance and resources for them to live a better quality of life in the region.