Herald-Leader chosen by ProPublica for Local Reporting Network partnership

The Lexington Herald-Leader has been chosen for a competitive partnership with an award-winning national publication.

ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom that has won eight Pulitzer Prizes since its launch in 2008, selected the Herald-Leader and reporter Alex Acquisto to be a part of its Local Reporting Network for the next year.

The organization’s 50 State Initiative, which began in 2024, is a commitment to partner with one newsroom from each U.S. state by 2029. Acquisto is a part of the program’s fourth cohort.

Acquisto, 37, covers politics and health for the Herald-Leader.

“I’m very excited for this opportunity,” Acquisto said. “In today’s local newspaper world, it’s a privilege to be able to devote so much time to a single investigation, and I’m grateful for the willingness of my newsroom to collaborate with ProPublica in this way.”

A native Kentuckian and graduate of Western Kentucky University, Acquisto joined the Lexington newspaper in 2019 as a Report for America corps member to cover public health in Eastern Kentucky.

Acquisto led the newspaper’s coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic and has since reported on the effects of climate disasters on rural communities, the political and medical impacts of Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban, as well as the impact of transgender health care bans on trans youth.

In 2024, she moved to the politics team, co-reporting on the conduct Democratic state Rep. Daniel Grossberg, who has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by multiple women and banned for life from a Louisville strip club; that series triggered a formal ethics investigation and spurred calls for his resignation.

Previously, Acquisto wrote for the Bangor Daily News and The Forecaster in Maine.

Acquisto will collaborate with Taylor Six, the Herald-Leader’s criminal justice reporter, on the project.

Six has been recognized for her coverage of incarceration, correctional health care and substance use disorder in Kentucky. In March 2025, she published a six-month-long investigation reporting the number of deaths in local Kentucky jails.

“What a great testament to the Herald-Leader’s commitment to public service journalism,” said Richard Green, executive editor. “We’re incredibly humbled by the opportunity to work with the ProPublica team. Together, we’ve identified an incredibly important topic that we’ve been tracking for months, and our revelatory work together will make a difference.”

Tessa Duvall, the Herald-Leader’s politics and public affairs editor, will also work closely with Acquisto, Six and ProPublica on the investigation.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to do the type of reporting that draws so many of us to the field in the first place: revelatory, unflinching and impactful,” Duvall said. “ProPublica’s generous support will go a long way in telling stories that matter to readers in our community and across Kentucky.”

Herald-Leader journalists spent several weeks researching, reporting and refining the pitch to ProPublica. Editors are not yet disclosing the focus of the investigation.

“Rest assured, it’s an important story with sweeping ramifications for thousands of Kentuckians,” Green said.

The Kentucky Press Association’s annual contest has deemed the Herald-Leader the winner of the general excellence category for the past three consecutive years, beating all other large newspapers across the commonwealth.

ProPublica launched its Local Reporting Network in 2018 in an effort to boost investigative journalism at the local level. Since then, it has worked with more than 90 news organizations.

Other newsrooms selected for this joint venture are KQED in San Francisco; The Philadelphia Inquirer in Philadelphia; The Tributary in Jacksonville, Florida; and Verite News in New Orleans.