Young journalist turns his big prize into a fund to help others in rural areas follow suit

A young reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize and other awards for a series in Appalachia has donated $10,000 in prize money to help other rural journalists get the same kind of training that enabled him to do his prize-winning work.

Daniel Gilbert, left, and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues have created the Fund for Rural Computer-Assisted Reporting to finance fellowships for rural journalists to attend the computer-assisted reporting boot camps of Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc.

The techniques Gilbert acquired at a CAR boot camp proved crucial in his reporting that exposed mismanagement of natural-gas royalties owed to landowners in Southwest Virginia. The series in the Bristol Herald Courier won the 33,000-circulation newspaper the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and earned Gilbert the $10,000 prize for Community Journalism in the National Journalism Awards sponsored by the Scripps Howard Foundation.

Gilbert, 28, assigned the Scripps prize to the endowment of the Institute, based in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. Gifts to the endowment through April 2011 are matched by the Research Challenge Trust Fund of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, so the Institute’s Fund for Rural Computer-Assisted Reporting starts with $20,000. Earnings from that amount will fund at least one fellowship per year for a rural journalist to attend a CAR boot camp, for which IRE will discount the registration fee as part of the fellowship.

“We hope others will follow Daniel’s example and contribute to the Fund for R-CAR,” said Al Cross, director of the Institute. “His generous donation is more than a lasting legacy to rural journalists. It is a reminder of the challenges they face – lack of resources, time and support – but also the opportunities they have, if given the right tools, to render great public service.” (Read more)