The Granite State News Collaborative is a statewide multimedia news collaborative that draws on and amplifies the strengths of its members to expand and add missing dimensions to coverage of issues of concern to the NH public as a whole, as well as to particular communities. Through coordinated reporting and engagement activities, the Collaborative will pursue inclusive and responsive coverage that builds public trust and holds government accountable to its citizens.

Email: melanie.plenda@collaborativenh. org

Tel: (603) 762-3302

GRANITE SOLUTIONS PROJECT MISSION

Committed to leveraging their respective strengths and resources to cover the state’s most critical issue, the founding members of the Granite State News Collaborative considered many options for its first project but returned time and again to the one that dominates conversations in every corner of the state: behavioral health.

It is a complex issue that connects addiction, social isolation, dislocation resulting from economic change, the out-migration of youth, and marginalization. It spans all populations and areas, rural and urban, and has relevance for all kinds of media and audiences, broad and narrow.

The GSNC will focus its collective resources on in-depth, evidence-based reporting on behavioral health in an effort to bring new depth, life and understanding to this issue. Using a Solutions Journalism Model we will be asking questions and telling stories—with equal rigor–about the challenges, what’s working and what’s not and the responses of every day granite staters striving to solve these problems.

The tandem mental health and opioid crises in New Hampshire has cast a shadow over our state. We aim to be a light.

We are a group of news, education and media outlets from all over the state who’ve agreed to pool time, talent and resources to bring statewide, in-depth multimedia coverage to our readers

These stories are being distributed by a range of news organizations as contributions to a conversation that’s relevant throughout the state. Further, all of the members in the collaborative are developing them together, each adding a local or thematic dimension to a particular thread of the topic the collaborative is tackling.

The Collaborative’s content is available for free only to members outlets at this time.

Founding members include The Berlin Daily Sun, Business NH Magazine, The Eagle-Tribune, InDepthNH, The Laconia Daily Sun, Manchester Ink Link, The Marlin Fitzwater Center at Franklin Pierce University, NH Bar News, NH Business Review, NH PBS, Purple States and Seacoast Media Group.

The project manager for the collaborative is Melanie Plenda, a longtime journalist in New Hampshire. Her award winning work has been featured in numerous national, regional and local publications.

The Collaborative’s engagement partners include Dartmouth Hitchcock, Nackey Loeb School of Communications, New Hampshire Press Association and Souhegan High School.

The Collaborative is always looking for more partners. If interested contact Project Manager Melanie Plenda.