For third year, The Star welcomes education reporter through nonprofit
For the past two years, the Ventura County Star has participated in a groundbreaking program to pay for our education reporter's salary. The Star covers a portion of the pay and benefits, and we help nonprofit Report for America raise funds for the rest.
The Star started its third year under this model and welcomed multimedia journalist Isaiah Murtaugh. He covers education across this diverse region through 20 public school districts, dozens of private schools and a handful of local colleges.
You've probably already seen his byline and read his many stories, including his recent piece on sexual assault investigations at campuses in Oxnard Union High School District, a profile on Moorpark College zoo's Mara Rodriguez and a student's unique graduation story from Century Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Isaiah spent the last two years before The Star as a podcaster and writer undertaking longform documentary projects and overseeing aspects of podcasts for "American Innovations," "American Storytellers" and "The Whistleblower," a podcast series from public television station WGBH and another nonprofit The GroundTruth Project.
Isaiah was selected for the prestigious Poynter Koch Media and Journalism fellowship, a yearlong program in which he reported audio and print stories on religion and politics for sites such as The Guardian, USA Today and Religion News Service.
Additionally, he interned at the Los Angeles Times, where he worked on obituary portraits of COVID-19 victims for paper's "The Pandemic's Toll" special project. He is a 2020 graduate of USC Annenberg School's master's degree program in journalism.
Isaiah, and the nonprofit Report for America, are a part of our local solution to ensure we can share more stories with our subscribers and audience.
For a variety of reasons, local journalism has suffered steep declines across the U.S. and the region in the past two decades. Steve Waldman, a co-founder of Report for America, wrote about the challenges in a February 2022 report in the Columbia Journalism Review and also shared it on the news television program "60 Minutes."
Waldman estimates a "57% decline in newspaper newsroom employees — from 71,640 to 30,820 — since 2004." The consequences of such a great loss in the industry mean lower voter turnout and less coverage of issues of great importance — corruption, waste, air pollution and corporate crime, he says.
The Star and Ventura County as a whole have not been immune to the losses among our journalism ranks. We're deeply grateful to have been selected as a Report for America newsroom.
Covering education is an important beat and it's become even more so since the pandemic and the election.
We hope our readers and supporters of quality journalism will consider donating online here. If you prefer to mail a check, the address is Report for America Ventura County Star Campaign c/o The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services, 9450 SW Gemini Dr, PMB 46837, Beaverton, Oregon, 97008-7105.
Stacie N. Galang is news director of the Ventura County Star. She can be reached at stacie.galang@vcstar.com or 805-437-0222.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: For third year, Star welcomes education reporter through nonprofit
