A group of journalists have decided to do something about the diminution of newsrooms at the local level. They’re making reporting part of a national service program.

Report for America, a nonprofit organization modeled after AmeriCorps, aims to install 1,000 journalists in understaffed newsrooms by 2022. Now in its pilot stage, the initiative has placed three reporters in Appalachia. It has chosen nine more, from 740 applicants, to be deployed across the country in June.

Molly Born, 29, was one of the first three selected for the program. She grew up in West Virginia and has the state motto tattooed on her back: “Montani Semper Liberi” (“Mountaineers Are Always Free”). A reporter at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the last six years, Ms. Born applied to Report for America with the hope of covering her home state.

“I felt like I needed to give something back to a place that has given a lot to me,” she said. “And journalism is the way for me to do that.”