Nonprofit steps up coverage of statehouses

No other reporter kept following the story of a wrongful-death lawsuit filed against Tyson Foods, but Clark Kauffman did. The deputy editor of Iowa Capitol Dispatch dug deep into the legal filings last year and uncovered a startling revelation:

Managers at the multinational corporation's pork-processing plant in Waterloo had been accused of placing bets on how many of their workers would get sick with coronavirus.

The story made international headlines and triggered a public apology from the company, which fired those managers after launching its own investigation. But Kauffman's boss said there was nothing "magic" in how he managed to uncover it.

"We're just able to spend our time like that," said editor Kathie Obradovich, "and every once in a while it pays off."

Kauffman's scoop is emblematic of the kind of reporting he produces regularly for the Iowa outpost of States Newsroom, a network of nonprofit newsrooms covering state government across the country. These outlets keep tabs on the legislatures and regulatory agencies where decisions are made that affect many aspects of daily life — including taxes, environmental rules, health care policy, school funding and workers rights.

With funding from foundations and a variety of donors, States Newsroom formed two years ago to attempt to fill a void in what many government watchdogs and civil-society experts believe is one of the biggest manifestations of the local journalism crisis: the shortage of reporters covering state government.

Monday, States Newsroom announced plans to nearly double its presence from its current 25 states to about 40 over the next two and a half years. It will open its next five outlets in Nebraska, Alaska, Arkansas, South Carolina and Kentucky. It's also launching "News from the States," an online clearinghouse to showcase all their affiliates' reporting.

Each news bureau is run independently, usually by veteran journalists — Kauffman and Obradovich both previously worked for the Des Moines Register — with staffs of about four or five journalists. And each allows other news organizations, including The Gazette, to republish its work free.

"State government and politics and policy have the most impact on people's lives and it's covered the least," said States Newsroom director and publisher Chris Fitzsimon. "That's really why we exist."

The number of newspaper reporters dedicated to covering statehouses across the country has been declining for decades, dropping by 35 percent between 2003 and 2014 and outpacing overall newspaper job losses over that time, according to Pew Research Center survey.

Enterprising activists, interest groups, bloggers and trade publications have attempted to fill the gap. Nonprofits have also increasingly stepped up, sometimes in collaboration with corporate media, such as the Associated Press's partnership with Report For America, which partially funds salaries for reporters at local news organizations. ProPublica expanded its local reporting network to pay for journalists at seven organizations to focus squarely on state government.

The nonprofit model is not immune to criticism, particularly about who pays the bills. States Newsroom does not accept corporate underwriting, which has been criticized as just another form of advertising. But some media watchdogs have challenged it for ties to ideological donors. States Newsroom has rebuffed those allegations, centered on its past relationship with the Hopewell Fund. The liberal group served as its incubator until States Newsroom secured its own nonprofit status in November 2019. States Newsroom said it never received funding from Hopewell.

The organization, which raised nearly $10 million in 2020, lists on its website every donor who has contributed more than $500.

Smaller newspapers have long relied on wire services such as the Associated Press to cover statehouses. However, The Gazette also operates a Des Moines bureau and shares statewide news coverage with Lee Enterprise newsrooms in Iowa.

"Community newspapers are under the gun, they're under stress and they're trying to keep their doors open," Obradovich said. The Dispatch, she hopes, can help provide them with "quality reporting that's objective, that's accurate and that they can count on from experienced reporters that they may not be able to hire themselves. And maybe that helps take off the pressure a little bit off of them."