NPR has received $3 million in funding to launch a new journalism project that will focus on providing in-depth, hyper-local coverage on community-specific issues on an online platform. NPR received $2 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and $1 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The new funding will allow a pilot group of a dozen NPR stations with the resources to provide in-depth, hyper-local news on a topic that is most relevant to the community where the station is located. The grants also allow the stations to hire new “journalist bloggers,” who will focus exclusively on reporting and aggregating news about a topic relevant to that city. The pilot radio and TV stations have not been chosen yet.
In addition, PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer will share its embeddable video player with the pilot participants. The player makes it possible to access and present video content from NewsHour, Frontline, NOW, Washington Week, Bill Moyers Journal, Tavis Smiley and about a dozen local PBS stations. The NewsHour will also feature selected reporting from the participating stations on its Web site.