For the last 12 months, I’ve worked with the nearly 100 members that form INN’s Rural News Network (RNN) to produce editorial series that amplify the reach of nuanced, community-based reporting about rural experiences in the U.S. My role has been to launch and manage these collaborations so that journalists from member newsrooms can concentrate on reporting. I coordinate the various stakeholders, communicate timelines, hone pitches, brainstorm sources and ensure we’re sharing resources among our network, newsrooms and external partners. As my year-long position wraps up, I’m reflecting on the innovative ways we’ve helped the excellent work of INN’s rural newsrooms reach new audiences.
Last summer, RNN worked with 20 journalists across 10 member newsrooms on a series about food insecurity. The Associated Press provided data and editing support. “Sowing Resilience” explored how diverse communities were grappling with a fraying social safety net — from elderly volunteers in New England and Black organizers in the Mississippi Delta, to Latino families in Appalachia and Indigenous entrepreneurs in the Great Plains.
As one journalist shared in the cohort’s final meeting, the series offered a rare chance to move beyond documenting hunger and instead highlight how communities are coming together to address the problem. From the development of pitches and reporting on the ground to the publication and promotion of the final pieces – it was each newsroom’s connection to community and focus on its audience that ensured the series’ success.
Over 700 local, national and niche outlets republished stories from the series. But I believe its most notable success was how readers across the country responded to the way their neighbors were portrayed, working creatively towards solutions and helping each other amid increasing needs in their communities. Readers of Capital B’s story about the entrepreneurs bringing healthy food to the Mississippi Delta praised the article on social media, calling it a “beautiful report” and saying “this gives the people of the DELTA hope that change is coming.” The newsroom’s Instagram carousel featuring photos of these innovators became one of its most engaged posts of 2025, driving audience growth with at least 100 new followers. This was due in part to the gorgeous photographs and videos featured; in fact, RNN’s dedicated funds for the project allowed Capital B to hire collaborators who “understood the community and our vision for the story” and drove this authentic reader engagement.
“We heard from the Kansas Farm Bureau for the first time with compliments for the story and gratitude we were covering rural issues.”
Meg Cunningham
Rural Health Reporter, The Beacon
Nearly all of the newsrooms reported an increase in connections to sources, fulfilling a key goal of RNN collaborations to increase members’ capacity to produce journalism. The story from The Jefferson County Beacon, a hyperlocal newsroom in rural Washington, generated responses from those featured in the reporting, who provided leads for more stories about local food producers. KOSU’s reporting on food resources for tribal nations in Oklahoma helped the newsroom forge new relationships with sources it called “invaluable” to its ongoing coverage of SNAP reductions. At The Beacon, the opportunity offered by the collaboration and the response from rural experts reinforced the newsroom’s goal to cover more rural issues. “We heard from the Kansas Farm Bureau for the first time with compliments for the story and gratitude we were covering rural issues,” rural health reporter Meg Cunningham shared, saying this in turn led to more sources. “This was a win for us as we work to expand our rural coverage and audience outside of the K[ansas] C[ity] metro.”
The series established RNN newsrooms as authorities on the subject of food insecurity in rural communities. The community-based storytelling resonated deeply with experts and advocates, as well, gaining the newsrooms new allies in promoting their work. At least 12 advocacy, research, legal and philanthropic organizations that work in public health and food security posted a story from the project on their websites or shared them on social media. A nonprofit food organization, inspired by Capital B’s reporting, promised to share its journalism with its own network going forward. The Maine Organic Farmers & Growers Organization excerpted The Maine Monitor’s reporting on volunteer shortages at food pantries in its public policy newsletter.
Local grocery stores are lifelines for small towns. If the one in Greenbush closed, residents would have to travel 50 miles for other options. Cuts to food assistance will hurt these grocers and rural Minnesotans. www.minnpost.com/greater-minn…
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar.com) September 29, 2025 at 6:41 PM
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Policymakers and lobbyists paid attention. Local officials responded to Investigate Midwest’s story about farmers struggling to access food, expressing “appreciation for shining a light on an overlooked issue.” Grocery store industry groups, a former state lawmaker turned lobbyist and even Senator Amy Klobuchar shared MinnPost’s coverage of the challenges in keeping rural grocery stores open.
Louisville Public Media’s (LPM) story actually reached people in need. LPM uncovered the faulty state investigations in Kentucky that were kicking recipients off of their food benefits. The story prompted outreach from attorneys, service providers and even individuals affected by these investigations, and it was shared by AppalReD Legal Aid, which offers free civic legal help to low-income people in 37 counties in Appalachia.
Through republication in The Associated Press, stories like LPM’s reached audiences across the country at both the national and local level (The Washington Post, ABC News, Yahoo News, etc). INN gathered the names of at least 78 unique outlets that republished work from the series, and newsletters including KFF Health News featured the stories over the two weeks they were published.
INN also tried something new with “Sowing Resilience” beyond republication. We emailed dozens of national and state food policy organizations, university-based food policy and health research centers, and Extension & 4-H representatives in nine states to share the reporting. The outreach was well-timed. As the first stories ran, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cancelled future food-insecurity data collection that underpinned the reporting. We highlighted this in our email push, noting that the data enabled rigorous, fact-checked coverage of hunger in rural communities.
The federal government’s refusal to acknowledge the problem makes future reporting more difficult. But the collaboration aimed to equip rural-based journalists with sources and expertise for solid accountability reporting of shifting federal priorities. By establishing newsrooms as sources of reliable information on food security, “Sowing Resilience” prepared them to continue following the issue as policymakers decided to cut food assistance, disrupt the global supply chain and deport the agricultural workforce.
In the last year, INN Network newsrooms have shown great courage and creativity in grounding national headlines in community-based stories. I noticed this ability to make complex, often global issues feel tangible and comprehensible as soon as I started working at INN and reading members’ coverage more regularly. Rural newsrooms especially, like many organizations that serve communities regularly ignored or misrepresented by mainstream media, must rely on their hard-won networks and deploy all their ingenuity and expertise to accurately cover how people are impacted by decisions made in Washington.
In my role supporting rural journalists this past year, I was able to catch a glimpse of this important work. I believe that feeling resonated with readers of “Sowing Resilience”: the understanding that being better informed about the issues we care about gives us the power to act.
