Nonprofit news outlets collaborate to produce series with localized stories about rural impact of nursing home rules

The Maine Monitor's package shows whether each nursing
home meets staffing standards or not. (Map adapted by TRB) 

By Alana Rocha

Editor, Rural News Network
Institute for Nonprofit News

Residents of some rural areas across the country have a more nuanced understanding of local nursing homes’ staffing struggles — and how proposed federal requirements may worsen them — thanks to a collaboration led by INN’s Rural News Network and other partners.

The project, “Falling Short: Rebuilding elderly care in rural America,” combined on-the-ground reporting from seven rural newsrooms with data analysis, support and visualizations from USA Today and Big Local News at Stanford University. Support from the National Institute for Health Care Management made the project possible.

If implemented, rural nursing homes across the country would have about two years to comply with proposed federal rules. But, as the “Falling Short” collaborators found, many of those facilities already struggle to recruit and retain skilled workers. Most are nowhere near able to comply with the new staffing minimums.

The collaboration provided essential resources for nuanced storytelling. Big Local News and USA Today investigative data reporter Jayme Fraser worked together to clean the data and developed a “story recipe” the journalists followed to write articles and get ideas for local sources.

Newsroom collaborations like this are a win-win, Sophia Paffenroth, community health reporter at Mississippi Today, said in a post-series survey: “For us, they generate more reach, offer some extra funding, and connect us to valuable networking and resources.”

Other nonprofit newsrooms in the project were the Barn Raiser in Kansas, Carolina Public Press, the Door County Knock in Wisconsin, JOLT (Journal of Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater) in Washington, and Maine Monitor.