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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Grants to hire reporters at rural Arkansas papers get less interest than press association expected

UPDATE, April 3: Twenty-six newspapers have applied and the winners will be decided and announced April 9. For the story, click here.

Only one Arkansas newspaper has expressed interest in a grant to hire an extra reporter to provide more in-depth coverage of local issues over the next two years, the executive director of the Arkansas Press Association reports in this week's Arkansas Publisher Weekly.

"I fully expected to be inundated with questions regarding the grants, but to date only one APA member has called with a question and that one regarding when the applications would be available," Tom Larimer writes. They are now, and the deadline is March 26.

The $252,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and matching money of about $140,000 to be raised by the Arkansas Community Foundation is supposed to get five community newspapers in Arkansas an extra reporter each, to be paid $35,000 a year. "Write for Arkansas" is designed "to provide more in-depth coverage of local issues," including economic development, the Knight Foundation said in its January announcement. "The reporters will write articles for print and blog about their communities and experiences on a new Write for Arkansas Web site. The additional reporting staff will help Arkansas residents and leaders have a greater understanding of the state’s challenges and needs. Meanwhile, the project’s online component will chronicle local issues from across the state and open a new channel of communication allowing residents to participate in the news." Maybe. We hope so.

UPDATE, March 18: Larimer writes in his latest edition, "This is one of the best deals to come along for APA member newspapers in a long time, and I hope most if not all our members make application for one of the grants. Some APA members I’ve talked with about the Write for Arkansas grants say the hardest part may be finding someone to fill the reporter slots. Finding good help has always been a challenge for newspapers. The fact that the grants require reporter candidates to have a college degree and at least one year experience also make it difficult. One might think that some of the journalists who have lost their jobs due to down-sizing might be around to fill these slots, and that may turn out to be true. Unfortunately, several of these have left the business to accept jobs in other sectors. Still, if I’m a newspaper with a shot at getting a free reporter for two years to cover local news in my market, you can bet I’m going to give it my all." (Read more)

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