LONDON — When Lucy Ashton quit The Sheffield Star in 2009 to have children and work in public relations, she had already seen other reporters steadily leaving the paper as circulation and advertising fell, and figured she’d never see jobs being added again.

Now she has returned, as part of a new initiative with a simple goal: to help news organizations cover local government.

One of her first stories back showed the value of the initiative. At a Sheffield City Council meeting, female members of the board discussed how they had been the target of online harassment. Some of the abuse wasn’t just online — one described how her home had been broken into by a harasser.

“That wasn’t on the agenda,” Ms. Ashton said. “Without a reporter at that meeting, we wouldn’t have got that.”