The State awarded Report for America grant to hire public housing reporter

The State on Monday was one of 164 news organizations awarded a grant from a national service program to help pay for a full-time reporter to cover local public housing and other issues related to underserved communities.

Report For America is an initiative started in 2017 as part of The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit. In addition to recruiting journalists, RFA provides them with development opportunities through training and mentoring before and during their assignments in local newsrooms.

RFA assignments last a full year, with the option to renew for a second year. Candidates will be interviewed by The State in May before coming aboard in June.

The state of Columbia’s public housing became a topic of debate after two residents of the Allen Benedict Court public housing complex died in January after a gas leak. The Columbia Housing Authority was accused of neglecting the property.

RFA partly funds the reporting positions, and newsrooms are responsible for identifying additional community funding to support the remainder of the cost.

The program receives funding from many individual donors and organizations including The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Ford Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Annenberg Foundation, The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and The Joyce Foundation.

Report for America will place 250 journalists in 164 newsrooms across the country in 2020, Charles Sennott, CEO and editor-in-chief of GroundTruth, said in his announcement Monday of this year’s reporting corps placements.

“RFA is about serving these communities and helping to restore the pipeline for a new generation of journalists,” Sennott said. Journalists may apply for the 2020 positions at reportforamerica.org.

To find out more about the The State’s RFA partnership and how you can be involved, please contact Executive Editor Brian Tolley at btolley@thestate.com.