Arkansas Times reporter snags two Local News Awards from Report for America – Arkansas Times

The national journalism nonprofit Report for America announced the winners of its fifth annual Local News Awards last week, and our very own agriculture and environment reporter Phillip Powell came away with not one but two honors.

RFA is a national service program that aims to address the decline of local journalism by placing reporters into local newsrooms and covering a portion of their salary. Powell, a 2025 RFA corps member and Arkansas native, came to the Arkansas Times last summer as part of RFA’s collaboration with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk. Since then, he’s covered Arkansas ag and enviro issues large and small, from the impact of tariffs on Arkansas soybean farmers to a local fight over an air-fouling waste lagoon near Fort Smith.

RFA’s honors outstanding reporting produced by the group’s corps members over the past year with its Local News Awards. Powell took the silver medal in the “News” category for a story on the Arkansas Legislature’s efforts this spring to restrict the growth of wind power in the state, titled “Breaking wind: Proposal would split Arkansas in two for wind energy regulations.” (The specific bill described in this story did not pass, but in the final days of the legislative session, the Republican majority ultimately did enact stringent new rules that wind advocates say could strangle the nascent industry in Arkansas.)

Powell also took home a third-place prize in the “Enterprise/Investigative” category, shared with fellow RFA corps member Lucas Dufalla of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Dufalla and Powell co-reported a story titled “Delta duck hunting offers conservation solutions, but the ducks are disappearing,” which appeared both in the Dem-Gaz and the Arkansas Times in April. A part of a Mississippi Ag & Water Desk series on wetlands, it details the destruction of duck habitat in the Arkansas Delta and the uphill battle faced by conservationists.

According to RFA, the group’s 2025 Local News Award winners were selected from more than 200 pieces of reporting produced by 102 reporters around the country. “Reporting spanned homelessness, mental health, climate change, racial equity, rural shifts, environmental justice, and political extremism, in communities from Albany to Appalachia, Concord to Cedar Rapids, and Birmingham to San Francisco,” RFA said — which makes Powell’s collection of two awards this year all the more notable. Congratulations, Phillip! 

And while we’re on the subject: If you’re as impressed with Powell’s reporting as we are, consider supporting his work. RFA helps small newsrooms like the Arkansas Times hire reporters like Powell, but the nonprofit covers only a portion of the salary. The rest comes from other sources, including local donors. You can contribute here.