CPB Invests $2.25 Million in State Government Coverage

RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Amid an industry drop in the overall number of full-time statehouse reporters across the country, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is investing $2.25 million to increase and strengthen state government coverage provided by public media station newsrooms. The grants were announced Wednesday at the Public Media Content Conference in Philadelphia.

CPB funds will support seven stations as they add statehouse reporting capacity. The coverage must be shared with public media stations across the state, as well as other media organizations. CPB funds will also support NPR's ability to provide editorial and training support for station-based reporters covering state government.

"The American people look to public media to provide high quality journalism in the form of factual, trusted news and information," said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison. "A strong civil society and democracy requires its citizens be informed with the facts. This is especially important when it comes to state government reporting. Unfortunately, today there are far fewer full-time journalists covering our nation's statehouses than just a decade ago. These CPB grants will address an urgent need as we increase the number of journalists at public media stations reporting statehouse news and policy decisions. Their coverage will be made available to all citizens in those seven states."

The grant recipients were selected from 20 proposals submitted from public media organizations in 19 states. Many will fill gaps identified in the State Government Coverage in Public Media survey commissioned by CPB and published in 2022. The survey found that while public media stations in all 50 states provide original state government reporting at least weekly when their legislatures are in session, five states lacked a full-time state government beat reporter based at a public media station.

In addition to the two-year grants to stations, CPB is providing $380,577 to NPR, which will enable the organization to hire a second state government editor to work with station reporters to identify trends across states, as well as provide training for state government reporters.