Remember the Peace Corps?
There’s a new nationwide service organization, and it brings similar energy to rejuvenating American newsrooms. Instead of sending workers to faraway places, Report for America recruits mission-driven journalists to help newsrooms across the country.
The initiative was launched five years ago as local newsrooms were shrinking. According to the Pew Research Center, newsroom employment in the U.S. has dropped by nearly 60% since 2004.
The intent of the new program was to bolster local newsrooms with talented early-career journalists. News organizations would apply for the help, making pitches about issues and communities they felt were underserved.
GroundTruth Project, the nonprofit behind Report for America, covers up to half of the journalist’s salary, with the host newsroom raising money to cover the rest.
We were thrilled to announce in January of this year that The Oregonian/OregonLive was selected to host two Report for America corps members in our newsroom. Both reporters joined us over the summer, and I wanted to give you an update on their contributions.
Sami Edge is our corps member focused on higher education reporting. She has covered everything from new college presidents to the surprising number of University of Portland first-year students who canceled their plans to attend the private North Portland school.
She took a deep dive into the perils and promises of apprenticeship programs, pointing out they provide a path to good jobs but have failed to reach women and people of color as well as proponents had hoped.
Working with Census data, she explored which community college degrees resulted in the highest paying jobs in Oregon.
Edge also volunteered as a mentor for our High School Journalism Institute, which was held in August at Oregon State University. Mentors worked with 20 high school students learning the craft of journalism over the course of a week on campus.
That’s another unique feature of Report for America: It requires a service project in the community outside of the work the corps members do in local newsrooms.
Our second corps member is Rose Wong, who reports on early childhood education. We made the pitch that with increased attention and resources on preschool for Oregon children, the timing was perfect for a reporter to focus on early education.
Wong has updated readers on the launch of Multnomah County’s preschool for all, which struggled with labor shortages coming out of the pandemic.
She also revealed a separate state program, Preschool Promise, had failed in its efforts to be ready for a September opening. The reason? Oregon’s Early Learning Division had not gotten necessary contracts to most of the nearly 250 preschools in the program.
The delay left families without the tuition-free schooling they had been counting on for their preschoolers.
Education is among those “bread and butter” issues for local newsrooms. If they had only three reporters, most newspaper editors would choose to cover police and courts, schools and local government as most important to readers.
It is also a top line item for public budgets. The Oregon Legislature allocated a record $9.3 billion for K-12 schools for last school year and this one.
Also, a note about schools: The Oregonian/OregonLive maintains one of the most comprehensive schools databases in Oregon. It’s free and you can find it at schools.oregonlive.com.
Data specialist Mark Friesen updated the database recently with the release of Oregon’s first significant test scores since the start of the pandemic. The scores were sobering, with marks falling precipitously for math, reading and writing.
Education and politics editor Betsy Hammond wrote about the results. Her analysis found one particular crisis spot: Reynolds School District had three schools, Davis, Salish Ponds and Reynolds Middle, in which at least 96% of students failed to test proficient in math. Alder Elementary, also in the district that stretches from outer Northeast Portland through Gresham and Fairview to Troutdale, had similar results in reading and writing.
Edge and Wong work with Hammond and also Jamie Goldberg, who helps direct politics and education coverage.
“In a time when most newsrooms have had to cut back on education coverage, it has been such a joy to see our coverage expand to look at Oregon’s youngest students and to focus in on community colleges, the places where most Oregonians start college,” Hammond said. “We know readers care about how well our state’s children, teens and young adults get prepared for success in life, and we’re able to provide broader and deeper revelations about that now.”
Thanks to our generous readers and the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Foundation, we have raised about $10,000 toward our $30,000 goal to help offset Report for America costs.
You can send tax-deductible contributions to Oregonian Publishing Co. Public Benefits Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Mail checks to Oregonians Federal Credit Union, attn: The Oregonian Education Reporting Lab, 336 N.E. 20th Ave., Portland OR 97232.
Readers can also donate online here.
Note to readers: Save the date for our 2022 gubernatorial debate in partnership with KGW-TV(8). The debate will be broadcast live 7-8 p.m. on Oct. 19 on KGW or OregonLive. The Oregonian/OregonLive’s politics reporter Hillary Borrud and KGW news anchor Laural Porter will question candidates Christine Drazan, Republican; Betsy Johnson, unaffiliated; and Tina Kotek, Democrat.