Fresno Bee awarded grant to hire reporter to cover area’s Latino communities

For the second consecutive year, The Fresno Bee has been awarded a grant to help fund a full-time reporter in the newsroom to cover Latino issues in the central San Joaquin Valley.

The grant announced Monday comes from Report for America, a collaborative partnership between nonprofit media outlet the GroundTruth Project, Google News Lab and other foundations. The initiative helps place reporters at newsrooms across the country, funding up to half of their annual salaries. The rest is paid for by the hosting news outlet and local donors.

The Fresno Bee secured a similar grant earlier this year through Report for America to partially fund a reporter covering poverty and related issues as part of The California Divide Project, a statewide media collaboration led by CalMatters.

That position began this summer with the hiring of reporter Manuela Tobias, who now will be extended for a second year, as announced Monday by Report for America.

Half of Tobias’ salary is funded by Report for America, while the other half is supported by CalMatters. RFA will pay half of the new reporter’s salary, and The Bee will fundraise for the second half.

“I’m thrilled that Report for America has placed its faith in The Fresno Bee to host two reporters in 2020,” said Joe Kieta, The Bee’s editor. “There’s certainly no shortage of important issues that need to be addressed in the San Joaquin Valley, and this additional reporter will allow us to write in-depth stories about issues in the Latino community that currently aren’t being covered.”

“It’s also exciting to be adding reporting resources at a time when many local news organizations are shrinking,” Kieta added. “Our recently announced Education Lab will add an additional four journalists to The Bee’s newsroom.”

Applications for the new Latino issues reporter at The Bee are now open on the Report for America website.

The Report for America initiative is relatively new. The first group of reporters entered their respective news outlets in 2018. For the 2019 cohort, Report for America placed 60 reporters in newsrooms across 28 states and Puerto Rico.

In a blog post published last year, Report for America co-founder and President Steven Waldman said the initiative is “focused on plugging the gaps in ‘news deserts.’”

The Sacramento Bee and The Modesto Bee have also secured new grants from Report for America for the second year in a row.

This story was originally published December 2, 2019 at 5:00 AM.