2022-2023

Technical.ly

Technical.ly is a major part of narrating economic change for the communities we serve. We’re interested in second and third tier regional economies. We’ve reported on each of our communities for five or more years, the longest being Philadelphia for a decade. Our reporters are trained to be deeply ingrained in the communities we serve, while also holding perspective from around other local economies. We are read by serious technologists, experienced entrepreneurs and economic development leaders who allocate resources among constituencies.

Sahan Journal

Sahan Journal is a one-month-old, digital-only news website whose mission is to provide fair, groundbreaking coverage that illuminates issues affecting Minnesota immigrants and refugees, and to chronicle how these communities are changing and redefining what it means to be a Minnesotan. We are expanding our audience by partnering with ethnic news media in the state and Minnesota Public Radio News, one of the largest newsrooms in Minnesota.

Ouray County Plaindealer

The Ouray County Plaindealer is a weekly newspaper. It’s been operating since 1877, since miners and other settlers came to this mountainous area of Colorado to seek their fortunes and make a living. Today, the Plaindealer’s readership includes locals whose families have been in the area for just as long as the newspaper, as well as newcomers who have moved to Ouray County after retiring or to work in the tourism industry. One of the notable things about the Plaindealer’s circulation is we deliver to 41 states—and are discovering that many of these subscribers are part-time residents or folks who wish to move here someday. The Plaindealer is the paper of record for Ouray County, and it’s what people rely on to know what happened at city and town council meetings, who said what at the school board retreat, and what happened to that bear that was wandering around town breaking into people’s houses. The goal is to provide The Plaindealer’s publishers, a couple who bought the newspaper in April 2019, are longtime Colorado journalists who left the largest newspaper in the western half of the state to purchase the weekly and bring quality journalism to the publication. They believe that even small, rural places deserve good journalism.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism is an award-winning nonprofit digital newsroom based in Memphis and focused on the intersection of poverty, power and policy. Launched in April 2017 during the run-up to the 50th anniversary of Dr.  Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, we frame the news from the perspective of the people King would have been aligned with had he not been assassinated. Through our three-year partnership with ProPublica, MLK50’s RFA fellows will have access to ProPublica training and may have the opportunity to collaborate on stories co-published with the national investigative reporting outlet.  

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS) is an award-winning, online news outlet that provides balanced coverage of low-income minority neighborhoods in Milwaukee's central city through objective, professional reporting. We cover the issues most important to the people who live, work and serve in central-city Milwaukee, such as public safety, arts and recreation, economic development, education, health and wellness and housing.  

Green Bay Press-Gazette

The Press-Gazette has been Green Bay’s primary source of local news and information since 1915. We focus on delivering core local coverage essential for a healthy community and democracy as well as providing journalism readers can’t get anywhere else. The Press-Gazette is part of the USA Today Network, which has 11 newspapers in Wisconsin covering local news and working closely together on broader stories that are important to readers in every corner of Wisconsin.  

Detroit Free Press/Politifact

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. Its role is to serve as watchdog and community convener. PolitiFact is a nonprofit newsroom housed at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida and is devoted to fact-checking American politics. Its mission is to give citizens the information they need to govern themselves in a democracy.

The Columbus Dispatch

The Dispatch's mission is to inform and engage Ohioans on issues important to helping them navigate daily life, and to hold public officials and business leaders accountable to the public. We emphasis enterprise and watchdog reporting. We take deep dives on important topics—opioids, suicide, fracking, income inequality, hazing, prescription-drug pricing, and ineffective and dangerous handling of arrest warrants to name a few. We initiated the Ohio News Organization collaborative of the eight largest newspapers a decade ago. We share content daily with non-profit and for-profit newsrooms and have worked together on joint reporting projects.

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 a chain. Block Clubs seeks to build community through ground-level reporting of the city’s neighborhoods.

The Oaklandside/Berkeleyside

Berkeleyside is a 10-year-old city news site that provides granular coverage of Berkeley, CA, a high-profile city in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our strength is in breaking news and in digging in deep on important issues of accountability. We have been successful in creating a loyal and highly engaged community of readers, and are seen as a model for digital local news nationally. We have recently converted to nonprofit status in order to create mission-driven newsrooms in more cities. Our first launch, in spring 2020, is in neighboring Oakland, a city of 420,000 in the throes of transformation.