CPB Provides Over $7.3 Million in Grants for Local Journalism in FY 2024, Including New Grants for State Government Coverage

WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 9, 2024) - The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) continued decades of support for local journalism in FY 2024, providing over $7.3 million in grants to support public media stations and regional news collaborations.

Today, CPB is announcing grant support of $2.65 million to increase and strengthen state government coverage provided by public media in Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina. The coverage generated will be shared with public media stations as well as other media organizations across the states.

"The growth of local journalism is essential to the civic health of our nation," said Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB. "Public radio and television stations, locally operated, are deeply connected to the communities they serve. Their primary mission is to provide trusted, fact-based reporting on issues of local concern so that people can make fully informed decisions. Public media's journalism earns the trust of Americans every day as it encompasses the complexity and integrity necessary to serve our civil society amidst growing mis- and disinformation."

Through CPB support, public media represents the largest non-profit news system in the U.S, with more than 4,400 local journalists based at local public media stations. According to a 2024 Pew Research survey, the majority of Americans, regardless of political leanings, trust local news sources.

State Government News Coverage

Combined with a previous round of funding for state government reporting, CPB has awarded grants in 14 states to provide more comprehensive coverage of state legislatures and executive branches. These grants will support hiring reporters and increasing the editorial capacity at stations as well as extending the focus from legislative sessions that occur over a few months to year-round coverage that examines policies and their impact on citizens.

Grant recipients were selected from 21 proposals submitted by public media organizations. The states, grant amounts, and lead stations are:

• Colorado-- $379,048 - KUNC in Greeley will lead Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS, as well as partners at the Rocky Mountain Community Radio Coalition and the non-profit news organization Colorado Sun to establish the "Colorado Capitol News Alliance." A newly hired journalist will cover full-time the Colorado state capitol and state government entities, with partners collaborating on news reporting, editorial planning, and digital distribution.

• Florida-- $493,819 - WUSF in Tampa will partner with South Florida PBS, WFIT (Melbourne), WFSU (Tallahassee), WGCU (Fort Myers), WLRN (Miami), WMFE (Orlando), WMNF (Tampa), and WUWF (Pensacola) and digital news outlet The Florida Courier to launch "Your Florida," a comprehensive reporting and audience engagement project designed to increase state government coverage, educate residents, and connect with audiences throughout the third-largest state in the country.

• Montana-- $179,644 - Montana Public Radio will hire a new Rural State Policy Reporter, doubling the state government news team to fill a gap in coverage of issues affecting rural communities, including state-tribal relations, economic development, and environmental policy. Partners include Yellowstone Public Radio and the University of Montana School of Journalism, which operates a Community and Legislative News Service.

• Nevada-- $384,140 - KUNR in Reno will have two year-round state government reporters funded by CPB, with one focused on producing audio content and one focused on digital-first content. Coverage will be shared with all Nevada media including project partners Nevada Public Radio, The Nevada Independent, and Noticiero Móvil of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. Select coverage will be translated into Spanish, as nearly a third of Nevada residents identify as Hispanic or Latino.

• New Jersey-- $328,426 - New Jersey PBS is partnering with the Center for Cooperhave two tive Media at Montclair University and newsrooms across the state to develop a central destination for state government news coverage, which will be augmented by original reporting and a weekly video program produced by the NJ PBS broadcast news team and its digital newsroom, NJ Spotlight News.

• New York-- $343,070 - WNYC in New York City will lead the New York Public News Network, a collaboration of 12 public media stations that will hire a full-time reporter to cover how state government policies affect New Yorkers. Partners include WSLU (Canton); WAMC (Albany); WBFO (Buffalo); WJFF (Liberty); WLIW (Long Island); WRVO (Oswego); WSHU (Connecticut/Long Island); WSKG (Vestal); WXXI (Rochester); WAER (Syracuse); and WMHT (Albany).

• North Carolina-- $542,041 - WUNC in Chapel Hill will add a dedicated reporter and editor to produce year-round state government coverage. Partner stations include Blue Ridge Public Radio (Asheville), WFAE (Charlotte), WFDD (Winston-Salem), and WHQR (Wilmington).

These grants, combined with the $2.25 million awarded in the first round of funding for state government coverage in FY 23, bring CPB's total investments in this journalism coverage to $4.9 million. Stations in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Texas received support in round one.

Regional Journalism Collaborations

The regional journalism collaborations funded by CPB in FY 24 serve some of the most remote areas of the United States, where residents struggle to find local information relevant to their lives. By combining their resources, stations in the collaborations can extend their reach to cover stories that shape their regions and reflect the diversity of viewpoint, race, gender, geography, economic status, age, national origin, and ability/disability.

• The Gulf States Newsroom($1.276 million) covers health care, criminal justice, the economy, and regional culture across Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Its award-winning Utility Bill of the Month series investigates excessive and incorrect water bills that have caused hardship for residents.

• The Mountain West News Bureau($499,094) is a regional newsroom along the spine of the Rocky Mountains serving Idaho, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wyoming with reporting on land and water management, energy, and Western culture. It includes a partnership with Koahnic Broadcasting Corporation to cover Native issues and distribute content to dozens of Native owned and operated radio stations.

• The Alaska Desk($935,429) covers the country's largest state with a network of public media stations that serve largely rural and Native communities. The stations have long worked together to provide information to Alaskans, who often lack any other source of local news.

CPB also funded other local journalism efforts in FY 24, supporting Hawaii Public Radio's coverage of the ongoing impact of the devastating fires in Maui as well as funding Connecticut Public's strategy of serving Latino communities in the state with news and information.

In this election year, CPB's support for the America Amplified initiative has helped public media stations reaching all 50 states provide information to citizens on casting their ballots. From creating voter guides to soliciting questions for candidates to broadcasting live from laundromats, America Amplified stations have engaged with citizens to identify their concerns and created fact-based content to make them better informed voters.

Editorial Integrity and Leadership

CPB funds journalism that aspires to the highest standards, journalism that is fair, accurate, balanced, objective, and transparent, and created in a manner consistent with local stations and producers' editorial independence.

Ensuring journalistic rigor, CPB support for local station journalism is coupled with training for public media editors and newsroom leaders through CPB's Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative, implemented by the Poynter Institute. As public media newsrooms continue to grow and the media landscape continues to evolve, news leaders need ongoing training to ensure their newsrooms continue to uphold the highest standards of editorial excellence.

To date the initiative has trained 124 journalists, with an additional 26 fellows recently beginning the program.The editors selected this round reflect the broad geographic diversity of the public media system - 22 percent are from the South, 20 percent from the Midwest, 16 percent from the Northeast, 20 percent from the Mountain states, and 22 percent from the West Coast.

CPB's support of the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps provides stations in need of temporary personnel or help on specific editorial projects with experienced editors. The Editor's Corps is designed to assist small and rural stations that may lack seasoned journalists with editorial expertise. Since its creation in 2020, stations have received more than 3,300 hours of editing assistance.

CPB plans to continue support for local journalism in FY 25 with grants to other regional journalism collaborations, funds for investigative reporting, and investments in local public affairs programs.

About CPB
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private, nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government's investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,500 locally managed and operated public television and radio stations nationwide. CPB is also the largest single source of funding for research, technology and program development for public radio, television, and related online services. For more information, visit cpb.org,follow us on Twitter @CPBmedia, Facebookand LinkedInand subscribefor other updates.

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