Reentry Project

The Reentry Project was a year-long partnership among 13 local newsrooms to report on the challenges of—and solutions to—prisoner reentry in Philadelphia. The initiative was a project of the Solutions Journalism Network, which trains journalists too rigorously report on responses to social problems. The Reentry Project brought a topic that had long been marginalized in Philadelphia to, quite literally, the front pages. Reporting spurred multiple policy changes locally and statewide in Pennsylvania, and the group won the 2017 Associated Press Media Editors’ Community Engagement award. The premise of the initiative — local media competitors collaborating together carry-out solutions journalism on a specific topic — was ground-breaking and it was Jane Von Bergen, a longtime reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer, who came up with this pioneering idea. The Reentry Project newsrooms decided to continue working together in 2018, launching Broke in Philly and laying the foundation for Resolve’s founding that year.