Good morning. We have some exciting news to share as you start your Monday.
PA Post is joining Spotlight PA to create a single newsroom dedicated to accountability journalism across Pennsylvania. The merger solidifies an already strong editorial and fundraising partnership between the two organizations, which are each funded by foundation grants and individual donations.
WITF, PA Post’s sponsor organization, will become a founding partner of Spotlight PA, standing alongside The Philadelphia Inquirer, PennLive/The Patriot-News and TribLive/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. WITF.org will continue to feature Spotlight PA’s reporting.
“PA Post and Spotlight PA share a mission of public service,” said Ron Hetrick, president and CEO of WITF. “Whereas PA Post focuses on multimedia statehouse and policy coverage and Spotlight PA focuses on strong accountability and investigative reporting, our combined news organization will bring the strengths of our capabilities together for the benefit of all Pennsylvanians. Our merger also will unify efforts to partner with other media in the state and solicit philanthropic support.”
Christopher Baxter, Spotlight PA’s editor in chief, will run the combined newsroom.
“We are excited to transform our existing collaboration into a stronger, more efficient and centralized newsroom to report on state government and urgent statewide issues,” Baxter said. “Public-service journalism is needed now more than ever to cover one of the largest, costliest and most opaque state governments in the nation.”
Spotlight PA will continue to collaborate with newsrooms throughout the state to help uncover and enhance stories of statewide importance that otherwise would go unnoticed or untold. The merged newsroom will continue to provide content free of charge to other news organizations to help bolster local media ecosystems and better inform the public. The team will also continue to provide resources and expertise, strive to reach underserved communities, and be a model of partnership that can be replicated elsewhere in the United States.
In addition to publishing stories at SpotlightPA.org, as a combined organization, Spotlight PA will produce two free newsletters: The Context and The Investigator. The Context will continue as a free weekday newsletter and will publish under the name PA Post. The Investigator, a free weekly newsletter produced by Spotlight PA, will continue to publish on Thursdays under its current name.
If you want to continue receiving The Context under its new name, you don’t need to take any extra steps. Your subscription will continue. If you’re not already receiving The Investigator, you can sign up for it at www.spotlightpa.org/newsletters/
The PA Post website, papost.org, will remain online until it is migrated to a new platform under Spotlight PA’s management.
PA Post and Spotlight PA rely on the support of readers like yourself. We thank you for your past support, and walking beside us in this next chapter. You can find more information about how you can support PA Post as it joins Spotlight PA online here.
For more information about PA Post and its future as part of Spotlight PA, please feel free to write to Christopher Baxter (
cbaxter@spotlightpa.org) or Ron Hetrick (
ron_hetrick@witf.org).
