Report for America applications are now open for news organizations interested in hosting emerging journalists for up to three years, beginning next June.

The national service places talented journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. The program recruits journalists and pays half the salary, up to $20,000. The other half is split between the host news organization and local donors.

WNA members are encouraged to contact their lawmakers and ask them to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act.

The bipartisan legislation provides direct financial incentives to support local journalism. Proposed tax credits include credit for local newspaper subscriptions, payroll credit for compensation of journalists and credit for advertising in local newspapers and local media.

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and the Center for Journalism Ethics at UW-Madison are partnering on a project to support election integrity this fall, the organizations have announced.

The effort, supported by $83,000 in funding from Craig Newmark Philanthropies, will focus on developing election integrity resource kits for citizens and journalists in addition to investigative reporting on voting issues in Wisconsin. Howard Hardee, a former Wisconsin State Journal reporter and current local news fellow at First Draft News, will be the lead reporter on the project.