ProPublica announced on Wednesday a new call for proposals to select the next five partners in its Local Reporting Network. These newsrooms will be chosen as part of the organization’s 50 State Initiative, a commitment to partnering with one newsroom from each state by 2029. The deadline for applications is April 14 at 5 p.m. Eastern. Reporters selected for the one-year program will begin work on July 1, 2025.
Newsrooms from 40 states are eligible to apply for this round. We cannot take applications from newsrooms in Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee and Utah, which were selected in the first year of the initiative.
Through this partnership, ProPublica will reimburse news organizations for the salary of the selected reporter (up to $75,000 plus a benefits stipend) so they can spend a year working full time on an accountability journalism project of importance to their communities. Additionally, ProPublica provides editing support, along with our data, research, visual storytelling, graphics, design, audience and engagement expertise. More information about how to apply and the application for prospective newsrooms have just been posted.
As part of the 50 State Initiative, ProPublica is currently working with newsrooms from the first 10 states. Reporting with The Connecticut Mirror on car towing in the state sparked a quick commitment from legislators to look at laws through which low-income residents were quickly losing their cars. In Maine, the Bangor Daily News has documented how a new program that intended to prevent evictions excluded those in public housing. And the North Dakota Monitor’s reporter found that the state’s ethics rules governing elected officials are significantly weaker than those in other states.
“It’s an honor to work with newsrooms around the country to bring forward reporting that is essential for their communities and eye-opening for a national audience,” said Sarah Blustain, an assistant managing editor at ProPublica. “As we enter this second year of the program, we’re eager to expand our investigative reach and to engage with urgent issues in new states.”
The 50 State Initiative expands the scope of ProPublica’s work at the local and regional level, which includes a growing team of journalists reporting from communities across the country and groundbreaking partnerships with local news organizations through the LRN program.
The initiative broadens our support for local journalism, which now includes the LRN alongside dedicated reporting hubs in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, as well as an investigative unit in partnership with The Texas Tribune. ProPublica has more than 25 staff reporters and more than 20 reporting partnerships around the country contributing to regional and local accountability reporting, ensuring people can benefit from world-class journalism that can drive measurable change in their communities.
The LRN began in January 2018 in an effort to help remedy the lack of investigative reporting at the local level. It has since worked with some 80 news organizations across the country. A second call for proposals in 2025 will open up this spring, to begin work in October.
