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90.5 WESA Receives Report For America Grant to Expand Coverage to Johnstown, Penn.

PITTSBURGH— Pittsburgh’s NPR news station, 90.5 WESA, will be the recipient of a 2020 Report for America grant to place a reporter in Johnstown, Pa.

“We’re excited to expand WESA’s reporting to Johnstown, Penn.,” Patrick Doyle, WESA News Director, said.  “While we’ve been able to do intermittent coverage of the area in the past, we’re looking forward to having a dedicated journalist living, working, and reporting in the community. This journalism will provide important perspectives about Cambria County, Pa., to the Pittsburgh metro area, the state of Pennsylvania, and the entire NPR network.”

It was announced today that Report for America will field 250 emerging journalists in 164 host news organizations to serve local communities across 46 states in the coming year.

Report for America is a national service program that places talented, emerging journalists into local news organizations to report for one to two years on under-covered issues and communities. 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.

“Report for America is about serving these communities and helping to restore the pipeline for a new generation of journalists,” said Charles Sennott, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of GroundTruth, which launched Report for America in 2017.

The application for 2020 corps members was also launched today. Corps members will attend Report for America’s intensive training in June, at a site to be determined, before joining their newsrooms to launch their first year of service.