After recently helping establish the Ohio River Regional Journalism Collaboration, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has announced it is also awarding a grant of $278,300 to four public radio stations in Arkansas to form the Natural State News statewide news service. The multimedia journalism collaboration will be based at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
KUAR(FM), UALR’s public radio station, will serve as the lead station and will be joined by KUAF(FM) in Fayetteville, KASU(FM) in Jonesboro, and KTXK(FM), Texarkana. KUAR General Manager Ben Fry will lead the collaboration.
The stations will focus on education, health and energy stories, as well as report breaking news and related special interest stories. The content will be published online and heard on both local and national radio programs.
In addition, the grant will help create four new positions: a managing editor, two additional reporters, and a partner manager. Three of the new positions will be based in Little Rock, with one reporter working out of Jonesboro.
