On October 5, the Reynolds School of Journalism received $35,000 in micro-grants as a part of the Challenge Fund from the Online News Association. The fund will support an immigration-focused student newsroom lead by Professor Gi Woong Yun.

According to the ONA website, the Challenge Fund is awarded to universities that partner with other news organizations to create new ways of providing information to their local communities.

“We’re going to test a set of verification and translation tools, developed by Meedan, to strengthen local reporting on immigration issues and build trust among immigrant audiences,” Yun said. “Working in northern Nevada, a linguistically diverse community, we plan to build a pipeline for newsgathering, translation, and verification that augments our existing efforts to engage the community on the ground and on media such as KUNR. Short term, this will help surface underreported stories about the impact of national and local policies on immigrant communities. Long term, this will generate a database of vetted, translated reports and foster greater trust and engagement between local media and immigrant residents.”

The RSJ previously received the reward in 2015 for Noticiero Movil, a multimedia news publication based in Northern Nevada to provide content in Spanish and English.

“We’re really excited about receiving the Challenge Fund Grant from the Online News Association this year,” Dean Al Stavitsky of the RSJ said. “This is our second such grant in three years and I think it really speaks well about the Reynolds School National Reputation for innovation.”

The program will also work alongside the community to help verify information in the age of fake news.

“Instead of just the student’s reporting on immigration, the idea is that we can empower our community members as well to be co-producers of content and also help develop pipelines so that when there is either new information on immigration,” Vanessa Vancour, founder of Noticiero Movil said.”If we’re hearing about a scam that’s happening in the community we can all work together, both the student journalist and the community members to create accurate information and be able to share it in a way that is reliable and accessible to a lot of people.”

In addition to working alongside National Public Radio station KUNR, the RSJ is partnering with bay area based technology firm Meedan.

“They are developing really interesting tools to help people verify what they’re reading on social media and also do very quick translations of social media so in a project like this where we’re working in multiple languages,” Donica Mensing, Associate Dean of the RSJ said. “Being able to use social media in creative ways and also verify the information people are getting I think is going to make it a really useful and exciting innovative project.”

The project is planned to begin Spring of 2018 and will be implemented in the classroom of various journalism classes led by team members of the project. Team Members include Professor Caesar Andrews, Nico Colombant, and Vanessa Vancour.

“I’m thrilled that the RSJ received this Challenge Fund grant from ONA,” Natalie Van Hoozer, President of Reno’s Local ONA Chapter said. “Since I am a KUNR reporter who has previously collaborated with Meedan, I can’t wait to see how this partnership unfolds. As KUNR’s immigration reporter, I am speaking with first-hand knowledge when I say that Reno’s immigrant community needs more consistent coverage.”

“We’re really excited about receiving the Challenge Fund Grant from the Online News Association this year,” Dean Al Stavitsky of the RSJ said. “This is our second such grant in three years and I think it really speaks well about the Reynolds School National Reputation for innovation.”

The program will also work alongside the community to help verify information in the age of fake news.

“Instead of just the student’s reporting on immigration, the idea is that we can empower our community members as well to be co-producers of content and also help develop pipelines so that when there is either new information on immigration,” Vanessa Vancour, founder of Noticiero Movil said. “If we’re hearing about a scam that’s happening in the community we can all work together, both the student journalist and the community members to create accurate information and be able to share it in a way that is reliable and accessible to a lot of people.”

In addition to working alongside National Public Radio station KUNR, the RSJ is partnering with bay area based technology firm Meedan.

“They are developing really interesting tools to help people verify what they’re reading on social media and also do very quick translations of social media so in a project like this where we’re working in multiple languages,” Donica Mensing, Associate Dean of the RSJ said. “Being able to use social media in creative ways and also verify the information people are getting I think is going to make it a really useful and exciting innovative project.”

The project is planned to begin Spring of 2018 and will be implemented in the classroom of various journalism classes led by team members of the project. Team Members include Professor Caesar Andrews, Nico Colombant, and Vanessa Vancour.

“I’m thrilled that the RSJ received this Challenge Fund grant from ONA,” Natalie Van Hoozer, President of Reno’s Local ONA Chapter said. “Since I am a KUNR reporter who has previously collaborated with Meedan, I can’t wait to see how this partnership unfolds. As KUNR’s immigration reporter, I am speaking with first-hand knowledge when I say that Reno’s immigrant community needs more consistent coverage.”

Karolina Rivas can be reached at mpurdue@sagebrush.unr and on twitter @karolinarrivas.