Student-centered News Outlet to report on fracking

A four-year-old nonprofit news service established by two professors at Youngstown State University is taking on an expanded role in investigative news reporting and journalism training in northeast Ohio and beyond.

The News Outlet and its website, TheNewsOutlet.org, recipient of a two-year $302,000 matching grant in July from the James L. Knight Foundation and Cleveland-based Raymond John Wean Foundation, will increase its news coverage on the effects of the increase of oil and gas drilling in Ohio, Pennsylvania and western New York.

ProPublica partners with The News Outlet to educate journalism students in northeast Ohio

Nonprofit investigative-journalism organization ProPublica announced Tuesday a new partnership with The News Outlet, an community-journalism nonprofit based in northeast Ohio. The initiative, which The News Outlet detailed on its website, is an investigative-reporting workshop for journalism students at Youngstown State University, which founded The News Outlet and operates the website from its campus. The partnership, billed as a pilot project, adds a component to an advanced reporting course in YSU’s journalism school. Students will report and produce investigative stories under the guidance of ProPublica managing editor Stephen Engelberg. Engelberg will visit the campus for the first week of the class, then join the class weekly via Skype.