Before joining the Oklahoma Eagle, Lele worked as a reporting intern at the Tulsa World, serving audiences with stories related to homelessness, housing costs and gun violence. The previous summer, he contributed to a multimedia project analyzing the state of American democracy through Carnegie-Knight’s News 21 program. At the University of Oklahoma, he earned a degree in journalism and worked for the independent student newspaper — The OU Daily — as a city reporter and editor. His interest in news writing stems from his high school days, when he wrote movie reviews and sports content for his high school paper, the Tiger Tribune.
Beat: Black Wall Street and economic mobility in Tulsa
The Tulsa Local News Initiative (TLNI) is a nonprofit newsroom serving Tulsa with free, community-centered news. TLNI will launch a new newsroom and integrate the historic Oklahoma Eagle, transitioning it to a nonprofit, digital-first publication. This partnership expands The Eagle’s staff from one to four journalists and provides editorial and business support, ensuring the sustainability of one of the nation’s oldest Black newspapers, which has championed equity and African American advocacy for over 101 years.