West Virginia University’s P.I. Reed School of Journalism will receive up to $17,000 in New Voices funding to create a news operation at a rural Monroe County radio station.

The Monroe County Radio Project will create regular news programming at WHFI -FM, a radio station licensed to the Monroe County School Board. Journalism students and faculty will train student and adult volunteer reporters to report and produce local news stories for a 15-minute daily newscast, monthly public affairs programming and a Web site with news and streaming audio.

This project is a wonderful service-learning opportunity for our students,said School of Journalism Dean Maryanne Reed , who wrote the winning grant proposal.In the age of media consolidation, small communities are often overlooked by corporate radio. With the New Voices funding, our students will help Monroe County residents tell their own story.

The proposal, one of 10 selected from 185 applicants, will be funded by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

New Voices has found another batch of winners: scrappy, innovative, diverse citizen journalists who are inventing new ways to generate information and ideas for their communities,said New Voices Advisory Board member Peter Levine, director of CIRCLE at the University of Maryland .The techniques and models they are creating will help to renew American democracy.

The WVU School of Journalism will receive $12,000 in the first year to start up the project. The school will then be eligible for $5,000 in follow-up grants next year if it successfully launches its project and supplies matching funding.

J-Lab helps news organizations and citizens use new media technologies to create fresh ways for people to participate in public life. It also administers the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism and the J-Learning.org Web site.