To strengthen regional coverage, Dakotafire Media will create an alliance of rural journalists to provide in-depth reporting on topics vital to rural South Dakota. The alliance will connect these journalists through online meetings, social networking and collaborative writing software – allowing them to cover topics they couldn’t meaningfully address alone. The journalists, many of whom come from newspapers with staffs of three or fewer people, will also be able to exchange ideas and learn from each other. As some of these newspapers don’t have websites, Dakotafire will offer an online presence for them. The funding comes at a time of great change in the rural Dakotas, where the population is declining and aging, and metro newspapers are retreating to urban centers.