Grants to fund young reporters for major news outlets in Central Appalachia

Central Appalachia will get more news coverage with funding of reporters for established news organizations by a philanthropic initiative.

The Galloway Family Foundation and The GroundTruth Project’s new “Report for America” initiative will offer establish three year-long fellowships next year for emerging journalists at the Lexington Herald-Leader, West Virginia Public Broadcasting and the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

The Herald-Leader reports, "The three journalists will report directly to their respective news organizations and combine daily assignments with a longer, in-depth project that will be a collaboration of the three news organizations. (Journalists interested in applying may do so here.)

The Galloway Foundation finances journalism fellowships all over the world. Founder L. Thomas Galloway, a Kentucky native, said he hopes the effort “will increase the resources available to Appalachian journalism, and in doing so, allow for more in-depth coverage of the serious issues confronting the region.”

The Herald-Leader reporter will be assigned to Pikeville, re-establishing a bureau the McClatchy Co. newspaper closed in 2011. "In West Virginia, the Charleston Gazette-Mail and West Virginia Public Broadcasting both plan to have their reporters in the southern part of the state, which like Eastern Kentucky lies in the depressed Central Appalachian coalfield.

The reporters' mentorship and training program "will include a collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting to prepare and guide the reporters to work together on a long-form piece for Reveal, the public radio program and podcast that CIR produces and distributes nationally with PRX," the Herald-Leader reports.