Bismarck, N.D. – States Newsroom, the nation’s leading network of state-based nonprofit news outlets, today launched the North Dakota Monitor to provide free, high-quality, nonpartisan reporting on the important issues affecting the Peace Garden State. The Monitor will be the 39th news site in States Newsroom’s network and the ninth launched in 2023 alone. With the addition of its eight content-sharing agreements, States Newsroom is on track to have a presence in all fifty states by the middle of next year, elevating its status to a fully national network.

Veteran North Dakota journalist Amy Dalrymple will lead the Monitor’s newsroom as Editor-in-Chief. She has worked as a journalist in North Dakota for 20 years, most recently as editor of The Bismarck Tribune. Dalrymple reported from Williston for Forum News Service from 2012–2017 to cover North Dakota’s oil boom and also covered higher education and other topics for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. She has been involved in covering every North Dakota legislative session since 2009. Dalrymple will continue to be based in Bismarck.

Additional members of the newsroom include:

• Jeff Beach, Deputy Editor: Jeff Beach has three decades of journalism experience, with the bulk of it spent working in North Dakota as an editor and reporter. Most recently, Beach worked for Forum Communications in various roles, including as a reporter for Agweek and editor for Forum News Service. He is a former city editor and news editor for the Grand Forks Herald and was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1998 for Red River Valley flood coverage. Beach will be based in Fargo-Moorhead.
• Mary Steurer, Reporter: Mary Steurer recently moved to Bismarck from Casper, Wyoming. The St. Louis native covered local government for the Casper Star-Tribune. While there, Steurer won first-place awards for a series of stories on Wyoming’s housing crunch.
• Michael Achterling, Reporter: Michael Achterling will relocate to Bismarck in January from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, where he is news director for radio stations KDLM/KRCQ/KBOT, part of Leighton Broadcasting. Previously he worked for Detroit Lakes Tribune and Lakes Publishing Group as digital editor and city government reporter. He served as a mass communication specialist in the U.S. Navy.

“We are excited to close out 2023 by addressing the growing issue of news deserts in North Dakota,” said Chris Fitzsimon, Director and Publisher of States Newsroom. “Our goal is to make the North Dakota Monitor the go-to source for how decisions are being made by government officials in Bismarck and around the state. We know that Amy and her team will deliver on that mission by providing clear and honest reporting on the issues most critical to the Peace Garden State — all without a paywall.”

As part of its continued growth, States Newsroom announced in March that it was selected by The Pew Charitable Trusts to be the new home of Stateline – merging the two-state policy-focused organizations to expand their incisive reporting on state government around the country. States Newsroom also launched content-sharing partnerships with eight independent nonprofit outlets, including The Texas Tribune, to host reporting on News from the States, its comprehensive statehouse news site.

Last year, in a national study on statehouse reporting, Pew Research Center cited States Newsroom and other nonprofit newsrooms as key to filling the void in coverage left by staffing cuts at legacy media outlets. According to Pew, the overall percentage of reporters working for nonprofit newsrooms in the statehouse press corps has more than tripled since 2014 and now makes up the largest portion of statehouse reporters in 10 states and the second largest in 17 states.

States Newsroom is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by the generous contributions of readers and philanthropists. States Newsroom is committed to supporting fact-based, non-partisan news to the public at no cost and ad-free.

Other States Newsroom affiliates are:

Alabama Reflector – alabamareflector.com

Alaska Beacon – alaskabeacon.com

Arizona Mirror – azmirror.com

Arkansas Advocate – arkansasadvocate.com

Colorado Newsline – coloradonewsline.com

Florida Phoenix – floridaphoenix.com

Georgia Recorder – georgiarecorder.com

Idaho Capital Sun – idahocapitalsun.com

Indiana Capital Chronicle – indianacapitalchronicle.com

Iowa Capital Dispatch – iowacapitaldispatch.com

Kansas Reflector – kansasreflector.com

Kentucky Lantern – kentuckylantern.com

Louisiana Illuminator – lailluminator.com

Maine Morning Star – mainemorningstar.com

Maryland Matters – marylandmatters.org

Michigan Advance – michiganadvance.com

Minnesota Reformer – minnesotareformer.com

Missouri Independent – missouriindependent.com

Daily Montanan – dailymontanan.com

Nebraska Examiner – nebraskaexaminer.com

Nevada Current – nevadacurrent.com

New Hampshire Bulletin – newhampshirebulletin.com

New Jersey Monitor – newjerseymonitor.com

Source New Mexico – sourcenm.com

NC Newsline – ncnewsline.com

Ohio Capital Journal – ohiocapitaljournal.com

Oklahoma Voice – oklahomavoice.com

Oregon Capital Chronicle – oregoncapitalchronicle.com

Pennsylvania Capital-Star – penncapital-star.com

Rhode Island Current – rhodeislandcurrent.com

South Carolina Daily Gazette – scdailygazette.com

South Dakota Searchlight – southdakotasearchlight.com

Stateline – stateline.org

Tennessee Lookout – tennesseelookout.com

Virginia Mercury – virginiamercury.com

Washington State Standard – washingtonstatestandard.com

West Virginia Watch – westvirginiawatch.com

Wisconsin Examiner – wisconsinexaminer.com

In addition to its network of state-based newsrooms, States Newsroom has content-sharing agreements with eight leading nonprofit newsrooms: CommonWealth Beacon (Massachusetts), Connecticut Mirror, Honolulu Civil Beat (Hawaii), Mississippi Today, New York Focus, The Texas Tribune, VTDigger, and WyoFile (Wyoming).