For the last year, we have had an intense focus on growth and development in our region. We call our coverage Move Up Cincinnati.
Development is a complex issue. And changes to our region, cities and neighborhoods often have pros and cons.
As we have reported more and more on these topics, we have heard from many people in our community that we need to focus more on one of the downsides of development -- gentrification.
That's why we have partnered with a program called Report for America. Report for America places talented, emerging journalists into local news organizations to report for one to two years on under-covered issues and communities.
Report for America announced today that it selected WCPO as one of 164 partner news organizations for 2020. The program is a national effort by The GroundTruth Project, a Boston-based nonprofit that supports emerging journalists around the world. Many organizations provide funding for Report for America, including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Facebook Journalism Project, the Google News Initiative and Craig Newmark Philanthropies.
Over the next few months, we will work with Report for America to identify and hire a new reporter who will be based in our newsroom. That reporter will be tasked solely with covering gentrification across our region.
After some training with Report for America, the reporter will begin here at WCPO this summer.
We are looking forward to this partnership and to continuing to share the stories -- both positive and negative -- of growth and development in our community.
Mike Canan is the Senior Director of Local Media Content at WCPO. Contact him at mike.canan@wcpo.com. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram at @Mike_Canan.
