Report for America grant will support News Tribune coverage of military and veterans

The News Tribune has been chosen by a national service program called Report for America to host a full-time reporter to cover issues related to the military, Washington state veterans and their families.

Report for America made the announcement on Monday.

Pierce County is home to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Camp Murray and the American Lake VA Medical Center, while Washington state is home to a large population of veterans.

The News Tribune expects the reporter to explore issues including the sometimes difficult transition from military to civilian life, challenges facing veterans in job training and medical care, JBLM’s wider impact on regional economics and culture, and other topics.

The News Tribune is owned by McClatchy, and reporting from the position will be shared with McClatchy’s other Washington publications: The Olympian, Bellingham Herald and Tri-City Herald.

The position at The News Tribune is one of 250 being fielded by Report for America in 164 news organizations across 28 states and Puerto Rico, according to a news release from the organization.

“Report for America is a national service program that places talented, emerging journalists into local news organizations to report for one or two years on under-covered issues and communities,” the release stated. “An initiative of The GroundTruth Project, Report for America addresses an urgent need in journalism at a time when news deserts are widening across the country, leaving communities uninformed on local issues and threatening our democracy like never before.”

RFA is helping to fund the positions with more than $5 million. Donors include the James L. Knight Foundation, the Facebook Journalism Project, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Tow Foundation and others.

The remainder of the reporters’ salaries will come from their host newsrooms and community support. The News Tribune is exploring options for local funding to help support the position.

Charles Sennott is CEO and editor-in-chief of GroundTruth, which launched Report for America in 2017.

“We understand our program may not fix all that is broken in local journalism, but we are honored to be part of a wider community directly confronting the crisis and doing everything we can to restore journalism from the ground up,” Sennott said in the news release.

RFA reporters are expected to be trained and dispatched to their host newsrooms in June.