StateImpact In The News
Current | May 2013
Stations Continue StateImpact Without NPR
NPR has scaled back ambitious plans for StateImpact, its reporting partnership focused on public policy issues in eight states, but the project will live on among its 17 participating stations as the network shifts focus to new collaborative initiatives.
Columbia Journalism Review | May 2013
StateImpact Makes Its Mark, But Won’t Expand
Director Lynette Clemetson says she is delighted with the work done by the StateImpact reporters—who she calls “the next generation of public media journalists.” “I’m so proud of our model,” Clemetson said. “On this small scale, we changed the way reporting is done.”
Columbia Journalism School | December 2012
StateImpact Pennsylvania Wins 2013 duPont Award
The prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards recognized StateImpact Pennsylvania for its coverage of Pennsylvania’s energy economy and for being “an important model for reporting on local issues.” The award committee cited reporting by Scott Detrow of WITF Harrisburg and Susan Phillips of WHYY Philadelphia as well as the ShalePlay interactive developed by the NPR StateImpact team. StateImpact is one of 14 duPont winners this year.
Online News Association | September 2012
StateImpact Florida Wins 2012 Online Journalism Award
The StateImpact Florida team won a national award from the Online News Association for its “No Choice” investigation into admission policies of Florida charter schools. The project was the small newsroom winner of the Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism. Also, the entire StateImpact network was a finalist in the explanatory journalism in a large market category.
Data Driven Journalism | March 2012
Data Journalism at NPR: Interview with Matt Stiles
“I oversee data journalism on the StateImpact project, a local-national partnership between us and member stations. My typical day always begins with a morning “scrum” meeting among the D.C. team as part of our agile development process. I spend time acquiring and analyzing data throughout each data, and I typically work directly with reporters, training them on software and data visualization techniques. I also spend time planning news apps and interactives.”
Nieman Journalism Lab | December 2011
NPR’S StateImpact Project Explores Regional Issues with Focused, Data-Driven Journalism
“Billed as ‘station-based journalism covering the effect of government actions within every state,’ StateImpact essentially takes the extensive resources of a national news organization and applies them to the local level.”
PBS MediaShift | December 2011
If I Were Starting NPR’s Project Argo in 2012
“It makes me so thrilled to see Argo’s sister project, StateImpact, double down on context in their approach to blogging. They are proving that marrying well-tended topic page overviews with regular blog posts can be a formula for success … StateImpact joins sites like Salon and SBNation in starting to blur the line between stories and topic pages. And I like it.”
NPR’s This is NPR blog | July 2011
Member Stations Collaborate to Make the StateImpact
“The scope of the project is impressive: to hire and train two reporters in all 50 states to focus on this critical (and under-reported) beat.”
American Journalism Review | July 2011
Beefing Up State Coverage
“Monday marked the debut of Web sites in three states that are the opening salvos of StateImpact, a venture that ultimately aims to add at least two reporters to investigate statehouse news in every state.”
Current.org | July 2011
StateImpact Pilot Begins Scrutiny of Government in 8 States
“The fruit of this eight-state pilot phase will guide NPR as it expands the project to a second wave of stations beginning this fall, while proving to funders that the coverage is worth supporting — or so participants hope.”
Net NewsCheck | August 2011
In Cleveland, Comments Rock the Boat
“At StateImpact Ohio, the focus is on thorough, thoughtful reporting. ‘We don’t feel constrained by trying to keep up with the daily stories,’ ideastream general manager David Molpus explained. “We look for more thematic stories and try to go deeper.’”
The New York Times | October 2010
With Grant, NPR to Step Up State Government Reporting
“The project ‘creates capacity for local stations to hire reporters and to cover issues that matter that other places aren’t doing,’ said Vivian Schiller, NPR’s president and chief executive. ‘Everything that we’re doing as relates to member stations comes down to two things: building local news capacity and making sure the content we create is available to all people across all platforms.’”