Update-1: Report for America helps local newsrooms fill gaps

Local news across the U.S. continues to struggle as the pandemic adds to the financial losses that newspapers, radio stations and other media have suffered for years. With declining revenue from advertising and subscriptions, news outlets have resorted to cutting deeply into the personnel in their newsrooms.

In this episode of Update-1, Broadcast/Podcast team member Bill Loveless talks to Steve Waldman, president and co-founder of Report for America, a nonprofit program that puts journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.

Report for America placed 226 reporters in 46 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico in 2020 and aims to increase that number to 1,000 by 2024. Waldman crafted the plan for Report for America after authoring a Federal Communications Commission report, “Information Needs of Communities,” which NPR described as “one of the most comprehensive overviews of the U.S. media ever produced.” Previously, he was national editor of U.S. News & World Report and national correspondent for Newsweek.

 Mike Hempen produces Update-1. Besides listening on the Club website, Update-1 can be found on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, TuneIn and Spotify by searching for "NPC Update-1."