Overview:
- Twenty Detroit residents completed a paid, six-week journalism training program to report on environmental and climate issues in their neighborhoods
- Participants learned interviewing, photography, writing, and social video production, earning up to $350 for published work
- The 2026 cohort was the largest yet for the Neighborhood Reporting Lab, which trains community members as storytellers rather than sending outside reporters into neighborhoods
On a beautiful Detroit night with a summer breeze in the air, Planet Detroit’s 2026 Neighborhood Reporters gathered at the Old Miami to celebrate their accomplishments.
This year marked the third cohort of Planet Detroit’s Neighborhood Reporting Lab, and it was our biggest yet. Twenty Detroit-area residents joined the program, most with no prior journalism experience, and finished it as published reporters covering environmental health, climate, and local solutions in their own communities.
What the Lab is
The Neighborhood Reporting Lab is a paid, six-week training program built on a simple idea: the people who know a neighborhood best should be the ones telling its stories. Rather than send professional reporters into communities they don’t live in, we invest in residents as storytellers.
Over six weeks, participants learn interviewing, photography, and writing, then pitch and report stories rooted in their own communities with one-on-one editorial support. Every reporter earns up to $350 for published work. New this year, the cohort also trained in social video production with local influencer and Emmy-winning journalist Ian Solomon, learning to tell their stories in the vertical formats their neighbors watch. Keep an eye out for those videos in the coming months.
None of this happens alone. Our coaches this year were Bryce Huffman, Sydnee Thompson, Alex Washington, SaMya Overall, Martina Gúzman, Briana Rice, Ethan Bakuli, and Isabelle Tavares, who gave reporters the kind of hands-on mentoring that turns a first draft into a published piece.
The Lab is supported by the Kresge Foundation, whose investment makes the paid model possible.
Read the stories
The whole point is the work itself. You can read everything this cohort published here:
planetdetroit.org/neighborhood-reporters
Here are some highlights:
Street medicine teams bring healthcare directly to Detroit’s unhoused residents
Inside the velodrome: How a futuristic dome off I-75 became Detroit’s multigenerational fitness hub
From Black Bottom to Inkster: How one Detroiter is using gardens to heal communities
From ‘Tire Lady’ to community stewardship maven: Audra Carson’s evolving mission
What’s next
Congratulations to every reporter in the 2026 cohort. We hope to continue this program in the future!