• by Ray Schultz , July 11, 2024

NPR has received a $5.5 million grant from philanthropists Eric and Wendy Schmidt. 

The three-year investment will enable NPR and its partners to create a regional newsroom in Appalachia, conduct a multi-station visual journalism pilot in New England and support newsrooms in California and the Midwest. 

In 2020, the Schmidts provided a $4.7 million grant. 

The effort will bring together six public media outlets in Kentucky and Tennessee, and could lead to more.

In addition, the Mountain West News Bureau will become a regional newsroom under the Collaborative Journalism network. The Bureau is an existing 14-station collaboration that serves Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

The grant will also lead to creation of a pilot in partnership with the 10 station New England News Collaborative. The goal is to expand short-form video news coverage. 

“Local news organizations are essential to our communities, providing not only a sense of identity and connection but also a spotlight on local challenges like land rights, voting abuses, the impact of extractive industries and air and water quality,” says Wendy Schmidt, co-founder and president of the Schmidt Family Foundation. “Eric and I believe deeply in investing in NPR’s work to strengthen our democracy, protect human rights, expose wrongs and uplift voices that deserve to be heard.”