2021-2022

Houston Public Media

News 88.7 covers the Houston metro region, the nation's sixth largest radio market. Our newsroom slogan is "Stronger, More Engaging News Content" and our goal is: "Our audience will identify News 88.7 as a friendly place where smart people work hard to tell them about serious issues in a way not available from other media. Our content will reflect the unique sound, texture and character of the Houston region." In the last several years, our broadcast news has become much more closely aligned with the sound and pacing of NPR newscasts and the shows "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered". We have roughly 400,000 weekly radio listeners, 70,000 streaming, and our webpage gets about 400,000 views a month.

Megan Zerez

Megan Zerez reports on education for WSKG, an NPR affiliate station in Binghamton, New York. In 2021, she earned her degree from The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Zerez has interned with WNYC public radio and has written for The City, a nonprofit news site. She grew up in Honolulu and before she was a reporter, Zerez was a researcher in a bioengineering lab. But when ongoing nationwide protests in South Africa disrupted her work there, she began to record interviews and document clashes with police, and later realized that journalism was for her. That realization led to an internship at KERA, Dallas’ NPR station, where her story on refugees won statewide recognition. Zerez wrote an investigative series on alleged sexual harassment and labor law violations by a major university contractor for The Mercury, the student paper at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her work earned her honors from the Society of Professional Journalists.

WSKG Public Telecommunications Council

WSKG is a public radio station serving the Binghamton, N.Y., area with educational programming and news. Its areas of focus include the arts, culture and heritage of the region as well as other matters of local importance. It is an affiliate of National Public Radio. The station seeks to represent diverse viewpoints to help listeners reach better conclusions that can be clearly explained, effectively defended or, when appropriate, revisited and revised.

Bennito Kelty

Bennito Kelty covers the IDEA beat, taking a close look at inclusivity, diversity, equity and access for the Tucson Sentinel, a nonprofit news site in Tucson, Arizona. Before this, he worked for the Yuma Sun in Yuma, Arizona reporting on the Arizona-Mexico border and county government. Kelty calls Aurora, Colorado home and its diverse immigrant community led him to become interested in understanding cultures from around the world that exist in America and how these groups of people live together. That interest, plus growing up in a Mexican American home, influenced his love of languages, including his own native Spanish and English. Kelty started reporting as a journalism student at the University of Missouri, where he won recognition from the Missouri Press Association for a story in the Missourian, the school’s community paper. Kelty has also won an award with The St. Louis American for breaking news coverage.

Annie Rosenthal

Annie Rosenthal is the border reporter at Marfa Public Radio, which is based in Marfa, Texas. In 2020, as a Yale Parker Huang Fellow focused on migration and criminal justice and fluent in Spanish, Rosenthal helped to produce a bilingual radio show, tracked COVID deaths in U.S. prisons, and freelanced for publications like Politico Magazine and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She previously covered rural Alaskan life for the Homer News, the local paper in “the halibut fishing capital of the world,” and reported on immigration and the legal system as an intern at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Rosenthal received her B.A. from Yale University, where she was editor-in-chief of The New Journal, a long-form magazine about New Haven. Her thesis reporting on the search for missing migrants in Arizona earned her a 2020 Overseas Press Club Scholar Award and Yale's John Hersey Prize for journalism. Her hometown is Washington, D.C.

Claire Potter

Claire Potter reports on environmental issues for the Valley News in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Previously, she was a research intern for the “The Axe Files,” David Axelrod's podcast on CNN's site. Potter graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree in American History and English Literature from The University of Chicago in 2021, where she was a managing editor and contributor to Expositions, the student-run magazine covering environmental issues. Potter has written about Illinois' child welfare and juvenile justice systems for the student paper, The Chicago Maroon, and reported on the Iowa caucuses for ABC's political news site during the summer of 2019. A Pulitzer Center fellow, Potter has reported on the activists and urban planners who are reintroducing wetlands and rivers into Mexico City. She grew up in Warwick, New York.

Jacob Steimer

Jacob Steimer reports on poverty, power and public policy for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit digital newsroom in Memphis, Tennessee. Before this, Steimer reported for the Memphis Business Journal for more than four years, regularly scooping the competition. He says that his best stories included an investigation into a low income housing program and an in-depth look at why so few Memphis commercial real estate agents are Black, why that matters and how it could change. While studying journalism and economics at the University of Missouri, he was a reporter and editor for the Columbia Missourian, the school’s community paper, and earned awards from the Missouri Press Association. Steimer has interned at The Charlotte Observer and WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. An avid sports fan and a history enthusiast, he grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Lionel Ramos

Lionel Ramos covers race and inequity for Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit investigative news outlet in Oklahoma City. Ramos recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in English from Texas State University, where he reported for The University Star, covering Black students' perspectives on the voting process ahead of the 2020 election, and more. While earning his associate degree at San Antonio College, Ramos wrote for The Ranger, a student publication, including a story about a statistics class that discovered misleading language explaining the odds of winning the Texas lottery, which led to the lottery commission changing the wording. As the stats professor told Ramos in an interview: “Lottery is government; you ought to have truth in government.” Born into a circus family, Ramos has traveled all over the U.S., Mexico and Canada and is a first-generation American.

Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo

Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo reports for WSKG, an NPR affiliate in Binghamton, New York, covering rural health care in the southern part of the state. She grew up in Brooklyn and is a fourth generation Brooklynite. Before joining WSKG, Taylor-Vuolo freelanced for Documented, a nonprofit news site that focuses on New York City’s immigrant communities and policies that affect them. She reported on the city’s immigration court system and explored immigration issues and conditions in detention centers and county jails. Taylor-Vuolo holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and creative writing from Baruch College, where she investigated the use of video teleconferencing in immigration court hearings in a piece that was published by Gothamist, a website. She currently lives in Delaware County, New York and when she’s not writing and reporting she’s painting houses, growing vegetables, and taking care of her chickens.

Tash Kimmell

Natasha “Tash” Kimmell is an audio and photojournalist for KCAW, a nonprofit, noncommercial community radio station in Sitka, Alaska. Prior to this, Kimmell was a photo intern with the news site CalMatters, covering COVID-19, housing, education and other socio-political issues affecting Californians. As a production intern, she reported on the intersection of food and social justice for “Meat and Three,” the flagship podcast of the Heritage Radio Network. Kimmell holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, where she was a staff writer and photographer for Ethos, a student-run publication, and a DJ at the campus radio station KWVA. Her hometown is Pengrove, California.