The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has allocated $2.25 million in grants to enhance state government coverage by public media newsrooms. The announcement was made at the Public Media Content Conference in Philadelphia.
The grants were awarded to public media organizations in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Texas. These stations will share their coverage with other public media and news organizations in their respective states. Furthermore, CPB is providing $380,577 to NPR to hire an additional state government editor.
States, Grant Amounts, and Lead Stations:
- Alaska Public Media: $196,588 for a full-time journalist covering state legislature and government.
- Connecticut Public: $217,775 for a full-time reporter covering state government.
- WHYY in Delaware: $300,000 for multimedia, enterprise, and investigative journalism.
- Louisville Public Media in Kentucky: $294,727 to expand its state government news team.
- KOSU in Oklahoma: $250,000 for a full-time journalist focusing on data-driven investigative reporting.
- Wyoming Public Media: $360,999 for a multi-platform journalist and a full-time digital content coordinator.
- KERA in Texas: $250,000 to support the Texas Newsroom with additional editorial staff.
CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison stated, “The American people look to public media to provide high quality journalism in the form of factual, trusted news and information. A strong civil society and democracy requires its citizens be informed with the facts. This is especially important when it comes to state government reporting. Unfortunately, today there are far fewer full-time journalists covering our nation’s statehouses than just a decade ago. These CPB grants will address an urgent need as we increase the number of journalists at public media stations reporting statehouse news and policy decisions. Their coverage will be made available to all citizens in those seven states.”
