SDPB is proud to announce the addition of Richard Two Bulls as a reporter/producer for South Dakota Public Broadcasting. Two Bulls is one of 225 journalists hired as part of Report for America’s 2020 reporting corps.
Beginning June 1, 2020, Two Bulls covers communities for South Dakota Public Broadcasting, including the state’s nine Native American Reservations. He has spent most of the last decade reporting in Rapid City, South Dakota, for local television stations KOTA Territory News and KEVN Black Hills. An enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Two Bulls has covered a number of topics that directly relate to Native Americans.
One of his stories he is especially proud of includes a narrative on the Native American Arts and Crafts Act. Two Bulls is also passionate about telling stories that preserve the Lakota language. Over the years he has done stories with groups that aim to teach the language in full immersion to children starting in preschool. Two Bulls has covered a wide variety of news from Rapid City. In 2019, he and a colleague were awarded an “Eric Sevareid Award” from the Midwest Broadcast Journalist Association for a piece called “Sold for Sex: Trapped By Fear.”
Two Bulls was born in Rapid City and raised on different reservations throughout the U.S. He is a U.S. Navy veteran and was a Mass Communication Specialist. Two Bulls, his fiancée, and their son call the Black Hills their home. He is based at SDPB’s Black Hills Studio in Rapid City.
REPORT FOR AMERICA
Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities through its reporting corps. It is an initiative of the nonprofit news organization, The GroundTruth Project. The cohort of journalists are placed with more than 160 local news organizations across 46 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. These reporting positions come at a time when local journalism is already reeling from years of newsroom cuts and unforeseen challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. They also mark a major expansion from the current corps size of 59, of whom, more than 90 percent are returning.
“It’s now crystal clear that the need for trustworthy, accurate, and local information can be a matter of life and death,” said Steven Waldman, co-founder and president of Report for America. “This surge of reporters should help meet this moment.”
This year’s Report for America corps was chosen after a highly selective national competition that drew more than 1,800 applications. Leading journalists, editors and academics from a diverse spectrum of backgrounds and different media platforms acted as judges.
Report for America co-founder Charles Sennott, CEO of GroundTruth, said, “We’re grateful to all of our funders who are allowing us to answer a great need across the country for trusted local news and to restore journalism from the ground up in communities across the country.”
The newsrooms were selected in December based on a national competition. To win, news organizations described an urgent gap in coverage and a plan to deploy a Report for America journalist to address that gap. Nearly half of the 225 positions are in nonprofit media organizations.
ESSENTIAL PHILANTHROPIC PARTNERS
Report for America aims to increase the size of its reporter corps each year—with a goal of 1,000 journalists by 2024. Its ability to scale the program is made possible by multi-year commitments from supporters like the Knight Foundation.
Report for America leverages a unique funding match model, paying half of a corps member’s salary, while encouraging and supporting its local news partners to contribute one-quarter, and local and regional funders to contribute the final quarter.
Additional supporters include: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Natasha and Dirk Ziff; The Joyce Foundation; The David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Jonathan Logan Family Foundation; Craig Newmark Philanthropies; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; Heising-Simons Foundation; Tow Foundation; Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation; Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation; LOR Foundation/Solutions Journalism Network; Galloway Family Foundation; Leon Levy Foundation; Inasmuch Foundation; Select Equity Group; Henry L. Kimelman Foundation; Annie E. Casey Foundation; Newman's Own Foundation; Annenberg Foundation; Santa Fe Community Foundation; Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation; Further Forward Foundation; and McClatchy Foundation.
To learn more about Report for America and its efforts to strengthen communities through public service journalism, please visit www.reportforamerica.org. If you are interested in partnering with
Report for America, please write to [email protected].
ABOUT REPORT FOR AMERICA
Report for America is a national service program that places talented emerging journalists in local news rooms to report on under-covered topics and communities. Launched in 2017 and donor-financed, Report for America is creating a new, sustainable system that provides Americans with the information they need to improve their communities, hold powerful institutions accountable, and rebuild trust in the media. Report for America is an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. GroundTruth is an award-winning nonprofit media organization with an established track record of training and supporting teams of emerging journalists around the world and in the US.