NBC Stations Adds Nonprofit News Partners

The NBC Owned Television Stations has entered into cooperative news gathering and reporting arrangements with four additional nonprofit news organizations, the station group announced today.

The new partners: ProPublica in New York, The Chicago Reporter, WHYY-FM Philadelphia and KPCC-FM Los Angeles. ProPublica will work with all 10 NBC O&Os, while each of the others team with the NBC station in its market.

The model for the new arrangements is the existing partnership between NBC’s KNSD San Diego and voiceofsandiego.org, a nonprofit news organization that has been providing news and information to the local San Diego community for the last six years.

“Over the last several months, we’ve made significant investments in our 10 stations to boost our newsgathering capabilities and deliver the best local news and information in the marketplace,” said Valari Staab, president of the NBC Owned Television Stations.

“Our new partnerships will complement these efforts, giving us even more resources to enterprise stories that are important to our viewers in the communities we serve and helping us offer even more diverse programming and viewpoints. They will also offer an even larger platform for these nonprofit news organizations to have their independent and diverse voices heard.”

The arrangements are part of a broad effort being led by Staab to make the NBC O&Os more competitive. The effort includes hiring of 130 new staffers, capital improvements, more ENG resources and an expansion of news programming.

The Pulitzer Prize winning ProPublica is supported primarily by philanthropy and provides the articles it produces, free of charge, both through its own website and to leading news organizations selected with an eye toward maximizing the impact of each article.

The Chicago Reporter is an investigative news organization that publishes a website, blog and bi-monthly magazine. It identifies, analyzes and reports on the social, economic and political issues of metropolitan Chicago with a focus on race and poverty.

WHYY and KPCC are leading noncommercial radio stations with strong local news operations.

Earlier this year, NBC issued a call for potential partners, searching for nonprofit organizations with “robust news gathering capabilities, a track record of accuracy, fairness and independence in their journalistic efforts and an ability to provide diverse viewpoints and programming.” The four were selected from more than 30 that applied.

To watch a NBCU Direct video featuring interviews with each station and nonprofit organization, visit http://www.nbcudirect.com/nbcownedstations120611/.