ProPublica has selected five new partner newsrooms and local journalists for its Local Reporting Network. This is the third group selected as part of the organization’s 50 State Initiative, a commitment to partnering with one newsroom from each state by 2029.
The reporters are Ren Larson with The Assembly, Jena Brooker with BridgeDetroit, Christopher Osher of The Denver Gazette, Chris Bowling of the Flatwater Free Press and Nick Bowlin with The Frontier. This group will begin their investigative projects on July 1.
The Assembly (North Carolina) — Ren Larson
Larson is a staff reporter at The Assembly, a digital magazine reporting on power and place in North Carolina, where her reporting focuses on government, business, institutional accountability and state politics. Her reporting influenced a state audit that found a private company misspent more than $6 million in taxpayer dollars, and she was part of a team recognized for distinguished higher education education reporting by the North Carolina Press Association. She previously was a data reporter for The Texas Tribune and ProPublica’s investigative team and for The Arizona Republic, where her reporting led to tens of thousands of debt suits being dismissed, was recognized by the Knight Science Journalism award, and was a finalist for the Phil Meyer and Gerald Loeb awards. She holds masters degrees in public policy and international studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
BridgeDetroit (Michigan) — Jena Brooker
Brooker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit focused on environmental justice and food and land access in Detroit. She has reported extensively on how Detroit’s development patterns have fueled displacement and environmental harm, earning her the Public Service Award from the Michigan Press Association two years in a row. Her reporting brought citywide attention to the deleterious effects of dollar stores in Detroit, leading to a proposed ordinance limiting future stores and requiring existing stores to offer fresh produce. Her collaborative coverage with Planet Detroit prompted faster alerts about harmful wildfire smoke. For several years, she produced an award-winning weekly newsletter, JB’s Bites, which connected tens of thousands of Detroiters to vital information and uplifted solutions at the intersection of food and environment. She is a Michigan Emmy nominee for reporting on hidden “ghost” streams that contribute to urban flooding, and in 2023, she was named Young Journalist of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists Detroit chapter.
The Denver Gazette (Colorado) — Christopher Osher
Osher is a senior investigative reporter and editor for Colorado Watch at The Gazette of Colorado Springs and The Denver Gazette. His work as an investigative reporter has spurred reform and meaningful change in Colorado. He formerly was an investigative reporter at The Denver Post and worked at newspapers in Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Arkansas and Pennsylvania before arriving in Denver in 2005. He is a graduate of the University of Arkansas, where he learned under the guidance of Roy Reed, who covered the civil rights movement for The New York Times. His work has garnered numerous state, regional and national awards, including a 2024 George Polk award in state reporting for articles on Colorado’s dysfunctional family court system and problems in the court-appointed parental evaluation industry. He also was a leading contributor to work that was a 2012 finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors Freedom of Information Award for “Failed to Death,” a series exposing the deaths of Colorado children under the watch of the state’s child protective system.
Flatwater Free Press (Nebraska) — Chris Bowling
Bowling is an investigative reporter who covers Omaha for the Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s first statewide, independent nonprofit newsroom. Bowling has written about a failed government safety net for people with severe mental illness, Omaha’s growing homeless population and the state’s funding of anti-abortion clinics with federal money intended to help low-income families. Bowling’s reporting on a rural Nebraska school employee cutting the hair of two Native American students led to the state passing new anti-discrimination laws. Bowling was also part of a team that won the grand prize in the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book and Journalism Awards for a project on a small Nebraska town annually selling millions of cans of beer to one of the nation’s poorest Native American reservations.
The Frontier (Oklahoma) — Nick Bowlin
Bowlin is a freelance journalist who will be reporting on oil and gas in Oklahoma for The Frontier, a nonprofit newsroom. He has previously reported on these issues in Oklahoma for ProPublica as part of the award-winning “Unplugged” project, which investigated decommissioning costs across the nation. For the past six years, Bowlin has been a contributor to High Country News from Western Colorado, where he often covered mining, land use and post-COVID-19 economic trends in the Mountain West. His freelance work has appeared in Harper’s, The Guardian, The Nation, Vox and Outside Magazine, among others. His story about the battery metals mining boom was selected for the 2024 “The Best American Science and Nature Writing” anthology. That story was also a finalist for a 2024 Livingston Award. Before joining High Country News, he worked for E&E News in Washington, D.C., and for a local paper outside of Philadelphia. He has a bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.
ProPublica launched the Local Reporting Network at the beginning of 2018 to boost investigative journalism in local newsrooms. It has since worked with nearly 90 news organizations. The network is part of ProPublica’s local initiative, which includes offices in the Midwest, Northwest, South and Southwest, plus an investigative unit in partnership with The Texas Tribune.
