Write for Allegheny Independent Media
We are actively recruiting freelance journalists, beat stringers, student reporters, and regional voices across Western and Central Pennsylvania. We pay for original reporting.
Our Compensation Card
Quality regional journalism requires real compensation. We respect your time, sources, and reporting effort. Writers are paid upon editorial acceptance via direct deposit or check:
600–800 words. Focused local coverage: school boards, municipal meetings, or community essays.
1,000–1,500 words. Multi-source investigations, public records requests, and data-backed beat reporting.
Regional working-class poetry, oral histories, and cultural reflections on Appalachian life.
Priority Reporting Beats
We prioritize stories that corporate regional outlets decline to investigate or ignore due to cutbacks.
1. Local Government Watch
Borough councils, township supervisors, county commissioners, and school boards across Cambria, Somerset, Blair, Bedford, Indiana, Beaver, and Westmoreland counties. Budget transparency, zoning hearings, and property tax assessments.
2. Environmental Dispatches
Acid mine drainage, watershed contamination, shale gas fracking permits, AI data center power draws, and industrial runoff along the Conemaugh, Kiskiminetas, and Allegheny rivers.
3. Regional Public Health
Hospital closures, maternity desert expansions, EMS funding crises, rural opioid treatment access, and zip-code level disparities across Pennsylvania's mountain corridors.
4. Labor & Workplace Accountability
Union organizing, nursing strikes, warehouse conditions, mine safety, and local economic transitions.
You Bring the Story; We Bring the Numbers
Many talented local reporters hesitate to pitch data-driven investigations because statistical modeling feels daunting. At Allegheny Independent Media, we operate a collaborative partnership:
“You bring the human reality, interviews, and community sourcing from your hometown; our research desk will pull the Census spreadsheets, GIS parcel maps, and regression data to back your investigation up.”
Student Journalists & Regional Universities
We actively welcome pitches and clips from students and alumni at University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown (UPJ), Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), Penn State Altoona, and Saint Francis University. We provide hands-on editorial mentorship and publish bylines that give emerging reporters significant portfolio clips.