Public media newsrooms in seven states will get a money boost thanks to new grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
At the Public Media Content Conference in Philadelphia, CPB announced it will distribute $2.25 million to increase and strengthen state government coverage.
“Amid an industry drop in the overall number of full-time statehouse reporters across the country, CPB funds will support seven stations as they add statehouse reporting capacity,” it said in the announcement.
“The coverage must be shared with public media stations across the state, as well as other media organizations. CPB funds will also support NPR’s ability to provide editorial and training support for station-based reporters covering state government.”
Recipients were selected from 20 proposals from public media in 19 states. CPB said it was guided in part by gaps gaps identified in the State Government Coverage in Public Media survey published in 2022.
Here is the list of two-year grants with their descriptions as provided by CPB:
- Alaska, $196,588 to Alaska Public Media, to provide a year-round full-time journalist reporting on the state legislature and state government. Reporting will be shared and used by the 26 public broadcasting stations in the Alaska Public Media statewide network.
- Connecticut, $217,775 to Connecticut Public, to support a year-round, full-time reporter covering state government at Connecticut’s only statewide, community-supported public media service. Coverage will be made available to WSHU in Fairfield, as well as the eight public media stations in the New England News Collaborative, Spanish-language news outlets, and the nonprofit digital news organization Connecticut Mirror.
- Delaware, $300,000 to Philadelphia-based WHYY, whose signal reaches all of Delaware, to provide multimedia, enterprise and investigative journalism about state government to audiences throughout Delaware. Content will be made available to news organizations across the state, including to Delaware Public Media and the News Journal.
- Kentucky, $294,727 to Louisville Public Media to expand the station’s state government news team to four journalists. The coverage will be shared and used by Kentucky Public Radio Network partners, which includes WKMS (Murray), WEKU (Richmond) and WKYU (Bowling Green), in addition to sharing content with other small stations with coverage over the state’s 120 counties.
- Oklahoma, $250,000 to KOSU, Stillwater, to add a full-time journalist dedicated to providing data-driven investigative and enterprise reporting and digital content on the state legislature, government representatives and public policy issues. KOSU will partner with Oklahoma public radio stations KCCU (Lawton); KGOU (Oklahoma City); KWGS (Tulsa); and High Plains Public Radio in Amarillo, Texas to distribute content to 65 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties via radio broadcast and digital channels and share with other public media and news organizations throughout the state.
- Wyoming, $360,999 to Wyoming Public Media to partner with Jackson Hole Community Radio to add a multi-platform journalist covering state government and a full-time digital content coordinator, to ensure the coverage reaches the broadest audience possible.
- Texas, $250,000 to KERA in Dallas to support the Texas Newsroom with the addition of one editor and one reporter to deepen state government coverage with investigative reporting. The Texas Newsroom is a public radio journalism collaboration involving KERA in North Texas, Houston Public Media, KUT in Austin, Texas Public Radio in San Antonio, NPR, and other stations across the state.
- In addition, CPB said it will provide about $380,000 to NPR to hire a second state government editor to work with station reporters to identify trends and provide training for state government reporters.
