NPR Gets $3 Million to Launch Local Online Journalism Venture

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 2, 2009 - 6:46am.

Washington - National Public Radio (NPR) announced on Friday that it will launch a new online local journalism venture, funded with $3 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Knight Foundation.

The two-year pilot program will help a dozen public radio stations "establish themselves as definitive sources of news on a topic selected by each one as most relevant to its community, such as city politics, the changing economy, healthcare, immigration or education," NPR said.

"The opportunity here is two-fold. First, to beef up coverage of critical issues at the local level, and, second, to begin to establish an online network that can transform itself into a news powerhouse of unparalleled depth and quality," said NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller.

Participating stations will include WAMU (D.C.); WNYC (New York); KQED (San Francisco); and WBUR (Boston).