April 9, 2026
(April 9, 2026 — New York, NY) – Today, on Local News Day, MS NOW has announced a series of investments and collaborations with three leading nonprofit organizations in support of investigative and local journalism across the country.
Through a series of partnerships with The Pulitzer Center, The Marshall Project, and States Newsroom MS NOW is furthering its commitment to investigative and enterprise reporting and strengthening its coverage of local communities throughout the United States.
This initiative marks the latest development as MS NOW has built an independent newsroom over the last year. This follows the organization's inking of multiyear deals with Sky News and AccuWeather and the addition of more than three dozen Emmy-, Murrow-, Pulitzer-, and Peabody Award-winning journalists to its team.
These new and expanded partnerships reflect MS NOW’s commitment to increasing original reporting, sharpening its localized coverage, and expanding access to reliable information at a time of significant change in the media landscape.
According to MRI-Simmons data, MS NOW reaches 32 million Americans every week on television. In addition, MS NOW generated nearly eight billion combined views across YouTube and TikTok in 2025, recorded more than 140 million audio downloads, and reached 30 million people online each month at www.ms.now.
MS NOW Launches Grant Program to Support Independent Reporting and Journalists
MS NOW is launching a grant program to support local, nonprofit, and independent journalists producing accountability reporting. Among our partners in this effort will be the Pulitzer Center, which has a track record of more than two decades of supporting ambitious and innovative investigative and explanatory journalism in the U.S. and abroad.
Through this new partnership, journalists and newsrooms will receive funding from the Pulitzer Center and MS NOW to pursue original reporting on topics of national and local importance. These enterprise reporting projects led by local news outlets, will ultimately be published, distributed, and amplified across MS NOW programming and non-linear platforms.
The Pulitzer Center focuses on underreported issues, including climate and environmental issues, global health, human rights, and the impact of artificial intelligence. The reporting produced by Pulitzer grantees has produced real-world impact, from holding those in power accountable and triggering official inquiries to bearing witness to stories hidden from the public.
The Marshall Project and MS NOW to Team Up on Reporting Immigration Enforcement Across the U.S.
MS NOW and The Marshall Project will now collaborate on deeper investigative reporting examining U.S. immigration enforcement and detention practices and politics.
The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering the U.S. criminal justice system and its impact on people across the country, is also the only major American news outlet designed to reach currently incarcerated readers, including a video format to serve low-literacy audiences.
The collaboration, which builds on MS NOW’s coverage on this topic, will focus on extensive reporting surrounding Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, conditions inside detention facilities, and the impact on affected individuals and communities.
The reporting will include joint investigations, original field reporting, and in-depth storytelling designed to provide clarity and accountability on complex policy issues. MS NOW reporters Jacob Soboroff, David Noriega, and Rosa Flores, among others, will collaborate with The Marshall Project on this ongoing project.
MS NOW to Expand Its Collaboration with States Newsroom and Platform Local Election Reporting
Ahead of a consequential and closely watched midterm election, MS NOW is expanding its partnership with States Newsroom to strengthen reporting on state and local politics, bringing more of its state-focused reporting to the organization’s audiences across television and its non-linear platforms.
States Newsroom is the nation’s largest nonprofit network focused on state government coverage, with more than 200 journalists reporting from every state capital and Washington, D.C. Its reporting centers on policy decisions and issues that affect daily life in communities across the country, such as state-level health, education, and environmental policies.
The expanded collaboration will focus on coverage of local elections, policy debates, and voter access around the 2026 midterm elections and the fast-approaching 2028 presidential election. Reporting will be featured across MS NOW platforms throughout the election cycle, including primary and general election coverage.
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