Report for America has announced the placement of 107 journalists in newsrooms across the country, the organization’s latest response to the growing crisis in local, independent news and an increase of 31% from initial plans to help meet today’s challenges.

Gulf Coast Media is one of those host newsrooms.

“It’s a good day for journalism as we welcome 107 next generation journalists into a compelling phase of their careers at a time when their energy, integrity and skill are urgently needed,” said Kim Kleman, executive director at Report for America. “Our model of corps member recruitment and newsroom partnerships is a proven solution to today’s crisis in local news, bringing voice and coverage to undercovered communities and building back trust in media as a central pillar of our democracy.”

The incoming corps members were selected from a competitive pool of more than 1,300 applicants, ensuring top talent for the 101 newsrooms that will welcome these reporters. Report for America’s newsroom partners go through an equally competitive process each year, and more than half of this year’s host newsrooms are first-time partners, including Gulf Coast Media.

Across all 2025-26 corps members, more than one-third will focus on communities of color and/or immigrant communities and close to a quarter will be covering rural communities.

“We are pleased to partner with our host newsrooms to shed light on under-covered topics and communities, and the 2025 corps member cohort brings deep talent and diverse experiences to do just that,” said Earl Johnson, vice president of recruitment and alumni engagement at Report for America. “We intentionally invite journalists from diverse backgrounds to consider Report for America not only as their next professional opportunity, but for the chance to make a profound and lasting community impact.”

The corps members will begin their assignments in July and report on a range of communities and community-informed issues that, in many cases, have never received dedicated coverage. Beats range from faith and culture in Alabama to missing and murdered Indigenous people in the Northern Plains to Black Wall Street and economic mobility in Tulsa. In addition, Report for America is tripling its photography corps through its evolving partnership with CatchLight, whose mission is to strengthen local news by reinvesting in visual journalism — placing photographers where they are most needed and equipping newsrooms with the tools and support to produce impactful, community-centered storytelling.

Chavez, a recent graduate of the University of Florida, worked for the student newspaper, The Alligator, while studying toward her degree in journalism with an outside concentration in public health and health sciences. She will expand and deepen Gulf Coast Media’s reporting on how growth and development is impacting the area across traditional beats, from wildlife and the environment to education, workforce development and policy and legislation.

Find a complete list of incoming 2025-26 corps members, including their newsroom, and their beat at https://tinyurl.com/4p9vct79. The incoming journalists bring Report for America’s current, active reporter corps to 187, with 80 continuing their service into their second or third year.

“That’s what makes our model unique and effective: We pay a good chunk of a corps member’s salary for up to three years, while our local news sustainability team works with newsrooms to raise matching and ongoing funding,” said Jason Blakeney, director of corps and newsroom excellence at Report for America. “Newsroom support combined with industry-leading corps member training and mentorship contributes to the fact that 82% of Report for America corps members stay in journalism after they graduate from the program, where their expertise and commitment are so urgently needed.”

Report for America launched in 2017 as an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, an award-winning nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to rebuilding journalism from the ground up.

With this incoming cohort, Report for America will have matched more than 750 journalists with local newspapers, public radio stations, digital platforms and television outlets across the country since its launch in 2017. To learn more about Report for America and its efforts to strengthen communities and democracy through public service journalism, please visit www.reportforamerica.org.