Report for America’s new reporter corps includes Observer journalist
A new reporter will join The Observer on June 1 to cover under-represented communities and neighborhoods in Charlotte, part of a team of 225 journalists announced Thursday by Report for America.
Devna Bose will focus on covering under-served communities, including immigrants, neighborhoods of east and west Charlotte, and people struggling with poverty. Her work will include reporting on the recovery of those communities from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Report for America, a national nonprofit service organization, announced Thursday that it’s placing the 225 journalists in 160 news organizations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico this summer. That represents a major expansion over its current corps of 59 reporters.
Bose is completing her first year with Report for America, covering education in Newark, N.J., for the nonprofit news organization Chalkbeat. She has worked as a multimedia journalist for several news organizations in Mississippi, interning at the Neshoba Democrat, Jackson Free Press, Meridian Star and Oxford Eagle. She has covered city government, mental health, the LGBTQ community and other issues. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Mississippi.
Also Thursday, RFA announced that reporter Lauren Lindstrom will extend her assignment with The Observer for another year. Lindstrom has covered the affordable housing crisis in Charlotte since last June. Previously, she was a reporter for about five years at The Blade in Toledo, Ohio, where she covered public health issues such as Ohio’s heroin and opioid epidemic and Toledo’s efforts to reduce childhood lead poisoning.
Report for America is an initiative of the national nonprofit GroundTruth Project. The Knight Foundation is among its major funders.
RFA’s reporting corps program covers a portion of reporters’ salaries, and newsrooms raise the remaining funds in their communities. The Observer’s RFA positions are supported in part by the Foundation for the Carolinas and by the N.C. Local News Lab Fund, an initiative of the Democracy Fund. The News Lab is supporting RFA journalists in seven N.C. newsrooms.
Report for America will be supporting six journalists in Charlotte, at The Observer, La Noticia and WFAE.
Individuals, organizations or businesses can help support the two Observer reporters with a donation through Report for America at bit.ly/RFAObserver.
Donations also can be mailed directly to Report for America/The Charlotte Observer Campaign, c/o The GroundTruth Project, 10 Guest Street, Boston, MA 02135.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 9:23 AM.