Molly Farrar covers accountability and policy in the consolidated city-county government of Jacksonville for The Florida Trib. Before joining Report for America, Farrar worked as a digital journalist for WHDH Channel 7 and as a freelance reporter in the Greater Boston area covering local politics. Her news and transportation reporting won regional awards, and Farrar was selected as a First Amendment Institute Fellow with the New England First Amendment Coalition. Her investigative work on criminal justice and prisons was published in GBH News and The Intercept. Her stories have also appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Boston Globe. Farrar graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism and cello performance, where she also served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Free Press, the independent student newspaper.
Beat: Local Government Watchdog
Jacksonville has the largest municipal government in Florida and is one of the biggest political battlegrounds in America. At about 1 million residents, a combined county-city government is responsible for a head-swiveling list of responsibilities: Urban and rural police and fire services, beach renourishment, downtown redevelopment, affordable housing, and managing a broad system of parks and conservation land. The local government watchdog produces high-impact stories that keep this community's leaders in check.