In my early years in New Jersey, I vividly remember The Star-Ledger in Newark reporting on how hundreds of police officers and firefighters were given anabolic steroidshuman growth hormone and other forms of testosterone at taxpayer expense for medically unnecessary reasons. It was a tour de force of local journalism; something that deepened my understanding of the state where I lived.
Unfortunately, this type of journalism has been harder to come by as newspapers covering Jersey are struggling financially. Because the state is sandwiched between two large broadcast media markets—New York and Philly—the issues facing our cities receive far less attention.
Indeed, in February The Star Ledger is discontinuing its print edition entirely and moving to an online-only format. In the years leading up to the decision, the paper had made several job cuts and fewer offerings, even as the staff who remained continued to do vital journalism. Company executives say they will reinvest funds from the print shutdown into core editorial.
I hope so. Because every year the reminders of the decline of the local news industry become clearer. Redundancies. Closing of newspapers. Fewer investigations.
That’s why I’m so proud to share how ProPublica is helping to fill that void through a number of new initiatives we’ve launched and will continue to roll out in the new year.
At the beginning of 2024, we announced our State Initiative 50through which we pledged to tell stories of accountability with partners in all 50 states over the next five years. We’re currently working with our first 10 local newsrooms, including a project in North Dakota (the first time we’ve worked with a newsroom in the state), and we’ll pick up 10 more in 2025.
As part of this effort, we pay reporters a salary and benefits for one year so they can delve into a project that matters to their communities or regions. We also pair these reporters with editors here and members of ProPublica’s data, research, crowdsourcing and news applications teams to apply new and innovative methods to their reporting. One of the consequences of redundancies in the newsrooms was a sharp reduction or elimination of research and data processing groups. Giving partners access to these resources greatly expands the possibilities of the story.
The 50-state initiative is the result of our Local Accountability Network, which began in 2018 and has spawned nearly 100 projects to date. These stories changed laws and changed lives. They led to A state of emergency has been declared in Alaska, debt forgiven in Memphis, Tennesseeand huge sums of money are being allocated to fixing it longstanding problems in Idaho and Hawaii. Almost every week we see the impact of reporter journalism on the web. We have seen changes in both the blue and red states; so many issues transcend partisanship. People want to fix problems where they live when they learn about them.
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Sarabeth Maney/ProPublica
This success is possible thanks to the fact that we work with a huge range of publications: old newspapers, radio and television stations, as well as a new collective of non-profit newsrooms that have appeared with the aim of expanding news sources for local residents. We’re learning time and time again that people in different communities get their news in different ways, but the appetite for fact-based reporting transcends location.
Good journalism matters:
Our nonprofit, independent newsroom has one mission: to hold powerful people accountable. This is how our investigations are progressing driving real-world change:
We are trying something new. Was it helpful?
In the coming year, we will build on this track record of success. In January, we’ll launch a so-called sustainability service that will work with previous partners to produce stories even after a reporter’s annual stipend ends. We are hiring an editor and several other staff to maintain these relationships and identify opportunities to match our partners’ local expertise with ProPublica’s investigative expertise. Watch for stories about these partnerships later in the year.
We’re also launching a new initiative with our partners at The Texas Tribune. In addition to continuing the work of our general investigative departmentwe’ll identify the top issues facing the state and partner with five local newsrooms each year to cover one of those issues from different perspectives.
Texas is helping shape the national dialogue on issues from education to health care and immigration. Governor Greg Abbott has focused the nation’s attention on the border carrying more than 100,000 newly arrived immigrants to New York, Chicago and other major cities. The state is ready to accept private school vouchers in its upcoming legislative session. And here is also the highest proportion of residents without health insurance in the nation. We will provide financial, editorial and audience support to five newsrooms across the state, and we hope that our investment in journalism is right at the right time. As Texas lawmakers consolidate power in Austin — and newsrooms reduce their presence in the capital — this new approach will help ensure that newsrooms from El Paso to Tyler, from Lubbock to Laredo, can learn about how people in different parts of the state are dealing with similar issues. questions.
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Nick Bowlin/Capital and Main
Finally, we will be hiring a reporter in Florida. This will be our first focused reporting effort in the state, though we’ve done some memorable work there, including partnering with the Local Reporting Network with The Palm Beach Post on damage caused by burning sugar cane and from the Miami Herald about a program in Florida that was underperforming care for children born with brain damage.
The changes promised by Donald Trump as he prepares for his second administration are sure to have ramifications that will be felt at the local level. We are ready to document the impact on communities in an unprecedented way. When Trump was first sworn in, we didn’t have regional offices and hadn’t yet launched our local reporting network.
We currently have ProPublica reporters in 17 states: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. Florida will be 18.
And we have 21 active partnerships with local reporting networks across the country. In all, ProPublica has nearly 50 reporters in various communities who cover local news through an investigative lens.
We may never fully replace hyperlocal coverage of high school sports, police motorcycles and city council. But we believe that every American should enjoy the benefits of responsible journalism, no matter where they live.
