Southern Coalfields Reporter Joins WVPB Newsroom Through Report for America Initiative

On this West Virginia Morning, West Virginia Public Broadcasting added a new reporter to its news team this week. Molly Born will be in Williamson, covering the southern West Virginia and Kentucky coalfields. Molly’s position is one of three in the region made possible through a partnership with the Charleston Gazette-Mail, the Lexington Herald-Leader and the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative.

Report for America’s goal is to shore up local journalism across the country through local media partnerships paired with regional and national foundation funding.

News Director Jesse Wright spoke with Molly and Report for America co-founder Charlie Sennott about how the project got started and where it will go from here.

Also on today’s show, we hear from the Ohio Valley ReSource about a rural school collective in eastern Kentucky that received a multimillion dollar extension of a U.S. Department of Education grant. As Benny Becker reports in the series Changing Course, the federal money helps offset some chronic problems with school funding.

And we’ll hear Mountain Stage’s Song of the Week.