F. Amanda Tugade reports for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, which is based in Memphis, Tennessee. She focuses on poverty, power and public policy in Memphis and Shelby County. Previously, Tugade has covered Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. She has primarily worked as a reporter for local media outlets, including Shaw Media, the former 22nd Century Media and the Chicago Tribune/Pioneer Press newspapers. Her stories have also been featured in the Chicago Reader, Chicago Magazine, the Chicago Defender. She has won awards from the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association and the Illinois Press Association for her in-depth profiles of community leaders. Recently, Tugade was named a 2019 Peter Lisagor Award finalist. She’s a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Beat: and policy and how they affect workers' ability to make ends meet
This Reporter focuses on the intersection of poverty, power and public policy in Memphis and Shelby County. In practical terms, that includes monitoring elected bodies (Memphis City Council and the Shelby County Commission) and policy-making organizations (Memphis-Shelby County Economic Growth and Development Engine) on measures that affect low-wage residents. This reporting keeps a scorecard by which to measure local elected officials’ support of/resistance to policies that make it easier for poor people to make ends meet. This Reporter also compiles Q-and-As to accompany the Workers in Memphis visual storytelling series; covers live events (protests, demonstrations, press conferences) as assigned, and works on longer-term profiles and issue stories. They assist MLK50’s editor with follow-up accountability reporting on the nonprofit hospital Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, which promised major reforms after its debt collection practices were exposed.