Class of 2018 News Organizations

Report for America is proud to share our full cohort of 12 newsrooms who are hosting corps members in 2018. Our three newsrooms in Appalachia, which launched in January, are now joined by nine more newsrooms in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Applications are now being accepted for host newsrooms for the 2019 class of corps members. Apply here.

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.

The Report for America corps member will focus on covering neighborhoods on Chicago’s South and West sides, where crime, housing, education and environmental challenges persist. The reporter will focus not only on writing about problems in those areas, but also on efforts to lift up those communities, including business development, infrastructure improvements and social-service interventions. He or she will cover government and community events; be a watchdog for taxpayer dollars, and tell the stories of everyday people.

The Dallas Morning News is Texas’ largest news organization.

The Report for America corps member will cover the growing communities of second-generation Hispanic immigrants in North Texas so their interests will be represented in the Morning News’ journalism and in the area’s institutions.

 

Located at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, KRWG operates NPR and PBS stations and a news website, krwg.org, serving southern New Mexico, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

The Report for America corps member will do radio, TV and print pieces, covering education, healthcare, economic development, and sustainability in a challenging desert environment.

Billy Penn and The Incline cover Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, respectively, focusing on young news consumers using mobile devices and building community via both vibrant online presences and frequent offline events.

The Report for America corps member will cover the state legislature in Harrisburg (one of the most undercovered state houses in the nation) and will focus on issues of importance to residents of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The Telegraph, the leading news organization of Macon, Georgia, is part of the McClatchy organization. It is a partner in the Center for Collaborative Journalism at Mercer University, which includes Mercer’s journalism program and Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Macon radio station. CCJ’s goal is to train the next generation of watchdog and digitally-focused journalists. The Telegraph is partnering with the Co/Lab of the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University in a project to promote trust and engagement with readers.

The RFA corps member will be a key player in this effort, working with local residents to select issues of significant public interest (including, potentially, health care disparities, blight and poverty) and producing stories and other content on those topics.

Mississippi Public Broadcasting is an eight-station statewide television and radio network.

The Mississippi Delta remains one of the most deprived regions in the country. The Report for America corps member will help examine how poverty affects the lives of residents and resources needed to address their critical needs.

Mississippi Today is dedicated to providing Mississippians with reporting that inspires active interest in their state and equips them to engage in community life.

One Report for America corps member will expand written coverage of public policy issues, particularly health care, in the nation’s poorest state, especially in the Mississippi Delta and other poverty-affected areas. A second Report for America corps member will work as a photojournalist to illustrate through a visual approach to storytelling the impact of public policy issues such as health care, education and income security in the Delta. Video skills will be a plus.

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.

The Report for America corps member will cover local government in Victoria and assist the Advocate’s coverage of how Hurricane Harvey exposed and intensified the gap between the Texas Gulf Coast’s richest and poorest residents.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Charleston Gazette-Mail is a daily newspaper serving the state of West Virginia. The former Charleston Gazette and Charleston Daily Mail merged to form one newspaper in July 2015, thus establishing the Gazette-Mail. Reporter Eric Eyre won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting “for courageous reporting, performed in the face of powerful opposition, to expose the flood of opioids flowing into depressed West Virginia counties with the highest overdose death rates in the country.” In addition to a daily print product, the Gazette-Mail has a strong website and social media presence.

The mission of West Virginia Public Broadcasting is to educate, inform and inspire listeners by telling West Virginia’s story. WVPB is an indispensable resource for education, news and public affairs, emergency services and economic development. It works in partnership with Reveal/The Center for Investigative Reporting as well as 100 Days in Appalachia, an innovative news outlet that includes the WVU Reed College of Media Innovation Center and The Daily Yonder, with funding from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and The Democracy Fund.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Lexington Herald-Leader and its website Kentucky.com are committed to being Central and Eastern Kentucky’s primary source of news, advertising, information and commentary with the highest standards of journalism and superior customer service. Owned by The McClatchy Company since 2006, the Herald-Leader endeavors to be a rewarding and caring employer and a force for positive change in the community.