Towns & cities

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.

The Desert Sun

The Desert Sun is a small but mighty newsroom covering the Coachella Valley in Southern California. The Desert Sun is known for its groundbreaking environmental coverage, extensive arts reporting and watchdog journalism. The paper has won numerous awards, including an Edward R. Murrow award for a short film, “Freed But Forgotten: A Proposition 47 Investigation.” As a member of the USA Today network, its reporting regularly also appears in USA Today and 100+ other Gannett Co. papers. In addition to local news coverage, The Desert Sun produces a magazine, DESERT; a music festival called Tachevah; and a community storytelling series.

The Fresno Bee

The Fresno Bee is the primary news source for the central San Joaquin Valley, covering a six-county area that is one of the fastest-growing regions in California. The Fresno Bee’s website is the most-visited website in the region, and its mission is to inform and advocate for the enhancement of life in the Valley.

The Modesto Bee

The Modesto Bee, a McClatchy news organization, serves primarily the city of Modesto, Stanislaus County, and its surrounding cities and counties in the heart of California’s Central Valley and the Sierra foothills. The Bee has a rich, 134-year history of serving a diverse community built on agriculture with an eye on diversifying employment sectors in hopes of fending off the “brain drain” that sees many of our youngest and brightest leave for college and never return. Our mission is to connect with readers each day to discover and report on the issues that touch their lives.

The Sacramento Bee

The Sacramento Bee is the only daily newspaper covering California’s capital city. At 161 years old, the news organization is McClatchy’s flagship. The newspaper’s coverage area extends along the I-80 corridor from Lake Tahoe to the East and up to but not necessarily including the Bay Area. The newspaper covers northern California regularly as well as Stockton. In Sacramento, readers expect The Sacramento Bee to hold elected officials at the statehouse to account, and they rely on the newspaper for deep environmental coverage in addition to local government and growth.

The Sun-Gazette

The Sun-Gazette is 117-year-old weekly newspaper covering municipal and county government, disadvantaged communities, local schools, and business trends in Tulare County in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley of California. The newspaper’s mission is to provide informational, unbiased coverage in a media devoid, geographically expansive and poverty-plagued area between the state’s metropolitan media hubs of San Francisco and Los Angeles.