The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch has received a $25,000 grant from the Reva and David Logan Foundation for general operating expenses. This marks the first time the Iowa City-based non-profit, non-partisan news center has received a grant from the Chicago-based foundation.
“We’re extremely grateful to the foundation for this support,” Lyle Muller, the Iowa center’s executive director-editor, said. “Finding financial support for non-profit journalism is a continual need in a shifting landscape, especially now when so much interest exists in factual, in-depth reporting. This display of confidence from the Logan board helps us tell our story to other foundations, media partners and our several personal donors as we seek support for our center.”
The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch produces investigative and public affairs journalism in collaboration with other Iowa newsrooms and works one-on-one with college students who want to produce this kind of journalism at a professional, ethical level. This past year it started working with select high school journalists who show promise. It operates a news website, IowaWatch.org, and radio program, the IowaWatch Connection, and distributes its news stories to media outlets in Iowa for newspaper republication or broadcast airing.
The Iowa center also has received this year a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Knight News Match and operating grants from The Gazette Co. and Woodward Communications. A Community Foundation of Johnson County grant awarded last fall for this year recently supported an IowaWatch journalism project with high school student journalists and a three-year University of Northern Iowa Science in the Media contract with IowaWatch supported a recent reporting project with student journalists at Cedar Falls High School.
The Iowa center, founded in February 2010, received a big boost when it obtained five years of funding support from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. That support was not renewed for 2017, making diverse support, especially from organizations and individuals in Iowa, important this year, Muller said.
TO LEARN HOW IOWAWATCH’S NONPROFIT JOURNALISM IS FUNDED AND HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT IT, GO TO THIS LINK.
The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch is an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit program. It is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News. Find out more at IowaWatch.org/.