Our Journalists’ Work

The journalism that corps members produce includes news,  investigative, enterprise and feature stories and photography, for newspapers, radio, TV and digital-only newsrooms.

Collaborations

Report for America brings together its host newsrooms, partners, and funders to amplify local stories nationally. Through these partnerships, we help ensure diverse voices are heard, address critical local issues and foster a more inclusive media landscape.

 

This editorially independent initiative is based at the Missouri School of Journalism with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk

The Ag & Water Desk is a collaboration between the Missouri School of Journalism, Society of Environmental Journalists and Report for America, to enhance the quantity, quality and impact of journalism on agriculture, water and related issues across the nation’s largest watershed.

Our corps members, working in newsrooms across the basin, have produced hundreds of stories, including dozens of collaborative and investigative pieces, such as the five-part multimedia series “When it Rains” and team coverage of drinking water contamination.

The Desk’s coverage has been featured in local and national news outlets including the Associated Press, Washington Post, NPR, Science Friday, Indian Country Today and others.

Investigative Editing Corps

To encourage more investigative reporting in local newsrooms and to help local reporters hone those skills, Report for America partnered with Investigative Editing Corps to oversee several projects over the next two years in its host newsrooms.

“This collaboration is all about helping local news organizations produce stories that matter to their communities,” said Rose Ciotta, founder of Investigative Editing Corps. “It also allows experienced editors to help train the next generation of investigative reporters at a time when democracy demands strong fact-based reporting.”

 

The partnership is made possible through a generous grant from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.

 

Special Projects

More than words

Report for America brought together 11 newsrooms covering Latino communities in eight states to examine the impact of language barriers on the social, economic, and educational advancement of Latinos and the local efforts to close this gap. U.S. News and World Report published a selection from the comprehensive series that highlighted compelling photography from the project.

The project was made possible with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Salvador Reyna Madryc (left), a farm worker, talks to Luis Magaña, an advocate for farmworker justice, at the Flea Market in Stockton, California. (photo by Harika Maddala, Bay City News)
Jamie Edwards tends an urban garden that was a vacant lot in North St. Louis on Nov. 12, 2021. Edwards said she's had to overcome escalating costs and accidental demolitions as she tries to feed the community. (Photo by Wiley Price/St. Louis American)

The Barren Mile: COVID-19 and the fight against food apartheid

Report for America brought together four Black-owned newsrooms to look at how COVID-19 impacted food insecurity in their communities. It was the first collaborative national enterprise story by multiple Black publications since the 1960s. In a co-publishing deal, Mother Jones published the lead story on its website.