NewsOutlet.org gets $300K grant

Staff report

Youngstown

The NewsOutlet.org will be producing investigative stories about gas and oil-well drilling in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York with $300,000 in support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

TheNewsOutlet.org is a project of the Raymond John Wean Foundation and Youngstown State University, Kent State University and the University of Akron. Other partners are The Youngstown Foundation, The Vindicator and WYSU-FM, which helped found the project, and The Beacon Journal and Rubber City Radio, both in Akron.

The project partners student journalists with professional media editors and journalism faculty. The students produce multimedia enterprise and investigative content for legacy media organizations in Ohio.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation funding is part of the Knight Community Information Challenge, which engages community and place-based foundations to support news and information projects that inform and engage residents.

As part of the challenge, YSU, The Raymond John Wean Foundation, The Youngstown Foundation, KSU, WYSU, the University of Akron and others will match Knight’s support.

“TheNewsOutlet.org has produced important information that residents of Northeast Ohio need in order to make decisions about their lives,” said Jeffrey M. Glebocki, president of The Raymond John Wean Foundation. “TheNewsOutlet is being recognized as a leading model for university-media collaborations, and we are proud that it was born in our community.”

Now in its fourth year, TheNewsOutlet.org has produced more than 150 investigative and enterprise stories, including several that have sparked reform.

This year, a News Outlet investigation developed and published through The Vindicator, won first place in The Ohio Associated Press Investigative Reporting category, and this fall the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative news organization, ProPublica, will pair with YSU students in an advanced reporting class.

TheNewsOutlet, headquartered at YSU, is directed by Alyssa Lenhoff and Timothy Francisco.