The nonprofit news organization ProPublica announced a new initiative  to provide funding for local news outlets to pursue investigative projects focused on state government.In recent years, as the difficult economic environment facing the media industry has taken a particular toll on local news organizations, coverage of state governments has dropped significantly.

ProPublica’s initiative, which is being financed by an undisclosed donor, is intended to “try to help fill that gap,” Richard Tofel, the president of ProPublica disclosed .“Over the last 13 years the business results of almost every journalism organization has continued to deteriorate and that’s especially acute at the local level,” he said. “This project, generally, is a response to that.”

With print advertising continuing to collapse, many local news organizations have seen their newsrooms emptied. As more readers have moved online, many newspapers have cut back on how often they are published. Just two weeks ago, the owner of The Daily News, a stalwart New York tabloid, laid off half of the newsroom.

Between 2003 and 2014, there was a 35 percent decline in the number of reporters who cover statehouses, according to a Pew Research Center study — and that trend has only continued.For its initiative, ProPublica said it would choose seven local news organizations and that the work would begin early next year. Editors for the organizations can contact ProPublica and explain the investigative project they intend to pursue, along with the name of a reporter who would lead the project. ProPublica said it would cover the salary of the reporter and provide an “allowance” for benefits for one year.

That initiative, which was paid for by another unnamed donor and is also financed through 2020, includes all facets of local reporting, not just state government. Among the reporting that funding helped produce was a series by The Southern Illinoisan that investigated a public housing scandal in Cairo, Ill., and another on worker safety at nuclear facilities for The Santa Fe New Mexican.