The Spokesman-Review receives Report for America grant to add rural reporter

The Spokesman-Review will boost its coverage of rural Eastern Washington and North Idaho next year thanks to a nonprofit that helps news organizations hire more reporters.

Report for America announced last week it would support 150 new reporting positions at newspapers, radio and TV stations, and online news sites across the country, including a rural reporter at The Spokesman-Review.

This new position – which will focus on the counties directly adjacent to Spokane County in Washington and Idaho – will be the fourth reporter position at The Spokesman-Review supported, in part, by Report for America.

Spokesman-Review Executive Editor Rob Curley said the newspaper’s relationship with Report for America has been essential in helping the newspaper report on important topics that most regional daily newsrooms no longer have the resources to cover.

“Report for America has been a game-changer for us,” Curley said. “Along with helping us expand our coverage of state issues – with a real emphasis on rural Washington and Idaho – we’ve also been able to show our community what it is like for a news organization to work closely with its readers to not only identify topics they’d like to see us write more about, but also work directly with us to get those sorts of new reporter positions funded.

“Using this model, we are creating one of the most unique newsrooms in the nation, and none of it happens without the help we have received from Report for America.”

Curley said part of what makes these positions so different is that all of the stories written by Report for America and community-funded reporters at The Spokesman-Review no longer carry a traditional copyright, but instead use a Creative Commons license. This allows all of the reporting done by these journalists to be used by other organizations for free.

“All along, we’ve felt strongly that if our community helped us fund these new reporter positions, then our community should have every right to their work that we have,” Curley said. “A lot of organizations talk about community journalism, but this is truly the community’s journalism.”

Kim Kleman, senior vice president at Report for America, said the organization is making a stronger push to add reporters focused on rural America because of the lack of journalists covering those areas. She noted that 26% of newsrooms supported by Report for America next year will be in rural areas or will have beats covering rural communities.

“Your rural beat stood out because of the multitude of issues facing residents in eastern Washington, from a lack of broadband access to environmental threats,” she said in an email. “Plus, you have a great track record with the three corps members we’ve already placed with you.”

Report for America pays for half a reporter’s salary the first year and a smaller percentage in a second year. The program sometimes continues to provide funding in a third year. The goal is for a news organization to fund the position on its own after Report for America’s financial support ends.

That has happened at The Spokesman-Review. With financial support from local foundations and businesses, the newspaper’s popular Northwest Passages event series and donations from many local readers, The Spokesman-Review has become one of the first Report for America news organizations to assume all of the costs associated with reporter positions that originate through the RFA program.

Curley said the Innovia Foundation and Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund have been key in helping the newspaper’s newsroom meet the local funding requirement for these reporter positions, but noted that readers also have been extremely generous.

The Spokesman-Review reporters currently in Report for America positions are Arielle Dreher, who covers rural health; Orion Donovan-Smith, who is based in Washington, D.C., and covers the federal government as it relates to Eastern Washington and North Idaho; and Laurel Demkovich, who is based in Olympia and covers state government and other issues across Washington.

Curley said local fundraising for the new rural issues reporter already has begun, as well as generating the funding needed for The Spokesman-Review’s other Report for America positions.

The funding of the D.C. reporter allowed The Spokesman-Review to become the only newspaper in the Northwest with a full-time reporter based in Washington, D.C. That will change next year. One of the positions announced last week was for a Washington, D.C., reporter for the Anchorage Daily News.

Kleman noted that reporting on the federal government specific to regions or state congressional delegations has declined dramatically.

“So we were thrilled when The Spokesman-Review proposed that we help fund a D.C.-based reporter two years ago,” Kleman said. “We’re happy the Anchorage Daily News followed in your footsteps, and we hope others propose similar beats, too.”

Next year, Report for America will support 325 reporters. Kleman said the organization’s goal is to increase the number of journalists it supports to 1,000.

“Ideally, we want to teach so many newsrooms across the country how to fundraise for local journalism that they won’t need Report for America anymore. So our ultimate dream is to put ourselves out of business,” Kleman said.

Report for America is accepting applications for all its open reporting positions, including the rural reporter at The Spokesman-Review, at reportforamerica.org.

To learn more about how to help with the needed local funding for these Report for America reporter positions, visit spokesman.com/thanks or contact Curley via his email address at robc@spokesman.com.

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Kim Kleman’s last name.