The Kansas Health Institute News Service, the nonprofit news reporting service of the Kansas Health Institute (KHI), has become part of KCUR Public Media, a move that took effect Jan. 1
According to a press release from KHI, as part of the transition, KHI News Service journalists will become employees of KCUR and the KHI News Service will cease operation.
KCUR, the public radio station in Kansas City, MO, is launching the Kansas News Service, which will be headquartered in Topeka and cover news from across the state in partnership with KMUW in Wichita and Kansas Public Radio (KPR) in Lawrence.
The new partnership will continue to provide news content to newspapers and other media outlets in Kansas, and also will broaden the scope of its reporting to include education and politics, in addition to health and health policy.
The Kansas Health Institute created the KHI News Service 10 years ago as an editorially independent initiative with the belief that good journalism is critical to an informed citizenry, a robust public debate and, ultimately, good public policy.
The KHI News Service has played an important role in improving the public discourse on health policy in the decade since it was created. It was one of the earliest examples of nonprofit health journalism and served as a model for many other nonprofit news efforts across the country.
With the growing importance of nonprofit journalism and an increasing interest among local philanthropies, a strategic decision was made to launch a broader, more ambitious journalistic enterprise with the former KHI News Service as the cornerstone of that effort. KCUR and other public radio partners in the region were identified as the ideal partners.
“The KHI News Service has made important contributions to the health policy discussion in Kansas since it was launched ten years ago. The staff and Board of KHI are extremely proud of all that it has accomplished,” said Robert St. Peter, M.D., President and CEO of KHI. “We felt that now was the right time for an even bigger opportunity in nonprofit journalism. The partnership with public radio and the support of the philanthropic community created the opportunity to expand and improve the work done in Kansas to inform the public discussions on important social policy issues. We wish them all the best in their new endeavor. And KHI looks forward to focusing on the policy and research work that we are known for.”
All of the stories produced by the former KHI News Service are archived here.
New content produced by the Kansas News Service can be found here.
