GPB Media announced this week that it has received a $1.2 million dollar grant to form a Local Journalism Center. The grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be used to create the Southern Regional Education Desk to report on the educational challenges facing the South.

GPB will head a consortium of public broadcasters from five southern states. Included in the consortium are Alabama Public Television, WBHM-FM, Birmingham, AL., Louisiana Public Broadcasting, KEDM-FM, Monroe, LA., Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WNPT-TV, Nashville, TN., WUOT-FM, Knoxville, TN. The Southern Regional Education Desk will allow each station to add a reporter for the project and to share a regional editor and community engagement coordinator. Reporters will write and produce multimedia, multiplatform stories on the unique, long-standing education challenges facing the South

The Southern Regional Education Desk is one of seven Local Journalism Centers created around the country to report on specific topic areas. GPB is a public media organization with 17 radio stations and nine TV stations across Georgia.