The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has hired 2 new reporters. We need your help to fund them.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has hired two reporters through a partnership with Report for America, a nonprofit program that helps provide reporting on under-covered communities and issues across the country.
Kailey Broussard, a recent graduate of Arizona State University with a master’s in mass communication, will cover the city of Arlington, with a focus on community issues, accountability reporting and coronavirus recovery. Broussard is from Louisiana and attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for her undergraduate work.
Haley Samsel, a Texan and recent graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and international studies, will cover environmental issues related to the rapid growth of Fort Worth and Tarrant County. She will focus on topics such as land use, water supply and smart development strategies.
But we need your help.
The Report for America program provides funding for a portion of the reporters’ salaries, with the understanding that the Star-Telegram will cover the remaining cost of salary and benefits with its own funds and money raised from the community. Those remaining costs total about $34,000 per reporter.
Your support is even more important as our business, like many, has been hit hard financially by the coronavirus pandemic. This is a way you can not only help fund these important positions and coverage areas, but help preserve local journalism at a time when it is needed most.
You can make your tax-deductible donation through Report for America at this website. Any amount is appreciated.
Broussard and Samsel are among 225 journalists selected for Report for America’s 2020 reporting corps. Those journalists will be in 167 local news organizations across 45 states and Puerto Rico. They will begin work in June.
Report for America is an initiative of the nonprofit news organization The GroundTruth Project.
“It’s now crystal clear that the need for trustworthy, accurate, and local information can be a matter of life and death,” said Steven Waldman, co-founder and president of Report for America, in a news release. “This surge of reporters should help meet this moment.”
I’m excited about the opportunity to partner with Report for America and look forward to the contributions of our new reporters. They will join a hard-working team that is all in on doing its best every day to fulfill the Star-Telegram’s commitment to this community.
Steve Coffiman is executive editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and star-telegram.com.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
