Wausau Pilot & Review
Wausau Pilot & Review is pleased to announce that it has been selected as a Report for America host newsroom partner. As a host partner, Wausau Pilot & Review will join an expanding network of more than 200 newsrooms benefiting from the support of this nonprofit program.
Through this partnership, Wausau Pilot & Review will expand its coverage of under-represented communities in Marathon County, especially issues that impact our Southeast Asian residents. Journalists interested in this position can apply here, by Jan. 31, 2021.
Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. An initiative of The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit media organization, it is structured to harness the skills and idealism of an emerging group of journalists plus the creative spirit of local news organizations—like ours.
The selections were made mostly on the basis of which newsrooms defined the most compelling gaps in coverage and plans to deploy corps members well. But the bottom-up approach did produce certain new patterns. More than one third of the beats are covering communities of color, reflecting a surge in demand from newsrooms to address previously neglected beats. Half of the newsrooms, including Wausau Pilot & Review, are nonprofits.
“With the local news system shrinking, it’s important that we both put more and more reporters in the field—and that we help newsrooms that are working toward becoming more sustainable, and more grounded in the community,” said Steve Waldman, president and co-founder of Report for America. “It’s particularly gratifying that newsrooms have, en masse, decided that they want to do better coverage of communities of color.”
Those chosen include daily and weekly newspapers, digital-only news outlets, radio and television stations. They all offer exciting opportunities for prospective corps members, to include dozens of open beats.
Report for America is a two-year program (with an option for three) that delivers a wide-range of benefits to its corps members. Beyond paying up to half of the journalists’ salaries, it provides ongoing training and mentorship by leading journalists, peer networking, and memberships to select professional organizations.
We look forward to welcoming our new Report for America corps member(s) in June 2021. Please consider supporting this vital mission to preserve local news here, with a one-time, monthly or annual contribution – and remember all donations are matched now through Dec. 31 through NewsMatch.
