Lexi Krupp will join Vermont Public Radio in June as a Report For America journalist, the station has announced. She will cover the Upper Valley and Northeast Kingdom regions, with a special focus on the challenges and opportunities in rural communities.Krupp is among 300 journalists in the 2021-2022 corps. Report For America is a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. It is an initiative of the nonprofit news organization, The GroundTruth Project. The cohort, which includes a number of corps members returning for a second or third year, will join the staffs of more than 200 local news organizations across 49 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and Guam.
These reporting positions come at a critical moment, when many local newsrooms are closing—leaving a vacuum of trusted, accurate information that is being filled by partisan news sites and online disinformation that threaten our democracy. Vermont has lost more than 40 percent of its reporters, radio and television announcers in the last 20 years, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
‘We are honored that Report For America has provided us the opportunity to bring on a journalist to cover the Upper Valley and Northeast Kingdom,” said Mark Davis, VPR’s managing editor. “These are regions we’ve long wanted to serve with deeper coverage. Lexi’s talent and experience will help illuminate more Vermonters’ stories, while reporting on solutions to the challenges they face.”
Prior to joining VPR, Krupp was a science reporter for Interlochen Public Radio in northern Michigan, where she produced a podcast about the land, water and inhabitants of the upper Great Lakes’ area. Her work has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, and in Audubon, Popular Science, Science Vs, VICE, and Medscape. Krupp was a teacher and once spent a summer tracking mountain goats for the U.S. Forest Service. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from New York University and a bachelor’s in biology from Dartmouth College. She’s from Setauket, New York.
“I’m thrilled to be working in largely rural communities to help more people tell their stories,” said Krupp. “My first published piece was about a farmer in the Upper Valley, and I’m so excited to be returning to the area as a radio reporter with the incredible team at VPR.”
Report For America covers a portion of the salary of the journalist who is selected, with VPR and local fundraising initiatives covering the rest. The appointment is for one year but can be extended, with the goal for the position to become self-sustaining and permanent.
