2024-2025

Bowling Green Daily News

The Bowling Green Daily News, a news site and the area's only daily paper, is the main news source in south central Kentucky. The primary coverage area is the city of Bowling Green and Warren County. Founded in 1884, The Daily News remains a family-owned business with a mission to provide comprehensive and contextual news coverage.

The Connecticut Mirror

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit digital news site with a mission to produce original, in-depth, nonpartisan journalism that informs residents about the impact of public policy, holds government accountable and amplifies diverse voices and perspectives. The goal is a stronger democracy in which all residents can more effectively participate in the development of public policy and hold government accountable for understanding and addressing the needs of the people.

Black Voice News

Black Voice News, a news site, focuses on advocacy, solutions-oriented and data-driven reporting. It has addressed issues like disparities in health and education, police violence, social justice and civil rights battles. BVN has chronicled some of the most important stories impacting the lives of Black Californians, and given voice to the community while expanding its scope of civic involvement.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covers the Atlanta metro area, along with state Government, the Legislature, and statewide issues. Staff includes 80 reporters, 23 editors and 49 additional staffers who produce news stories, video documentaries, investigative special projects, podcasts and other journalism. The newspaper is owned by Cox Enterprises, a family-owned company that has been in Atlanta since 1939.

The Assembly

The Assembly is a digital-first magazine publishing deep reporting on power and place in North Carolina. We launched in 2021 with a focus on interesting and nonpartisan journalism about our state. We tell big stories, and give our journalists space to be ambitious. Our reporting aims to be narrative, informative and revelatory. This year, we started building regional teams and partners to bring that same level of reporting to the city level.  

Buffalo’s Fire

The Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance's mission is to improve Indigenous people's civil liberties through research, advocacy, and Native nation-building by employing the core values of integrity, inclusivity, and transparency. Our vision is a world where democracy thrives for Indigenous people through an independent press.

Gale Melcher

Before joining The Assembly, Melcher covered local government and community issues in Greensboro and Winston-Salem for Triad City Beat, a tenacious alternative newspaper that served the Triad community for 11 years before closing in February 2025. During her two years with the publication, she wrote hundreds of stories and reported on a wide range of topics including public housing, homelessness, policing, activism, elections and transit, producing in-depth, people-centered pieces. In January 2023, she wrote an investigative piece for Triad City Beat about Greensboro’s Pallet shelters, which remains the website’s most-viewed article. In 2024, Melcher earned a second place award from the North Carolina Press Association for her city/county government reporting, and has a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from North Carolina State University.
Avery Martinez headshot

Avery Martinez

Avery Martinez is currently the water, ag & environment reporter for KMOV-TV in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked in television, radio and newsprint across multiple states and markets. He brings a community approach to reporting. He cut his teeth in smaller family papers, before working in major syndicates and networks. Martinez has been a mental health correspondent, anchor, producer, legal staff writer, immigration specialist, editor, campaign correspondent and columnist—in addition to covering city, state and federal courts and legislatures. He was the first graduate of Fort Lewis College’s Journalism and Mass Media Studies program. Martinez has won awards and fellowships for his international coverage of healthcare systems, election committees, immigrant legal representation and the future of law school exams.
Gerard Albert

Gerard Albert III

Gerard Albert III covers rural communities in Western North Carolina at Blue Ridge Public Radio. Before joining Report for America, Albert worked at WLRN in South Florida reporting on affordable housing, law enforcement, and local government accountability in Broward County. There, he won multiple state and national awards for his coverage of the Parkland school shooter death penalty trial. His work has been featured on NPR, Here & Now and the BBC. Previously, he reported on the criminal justice system in Palm Beach and South Carolina, where he won state-wide awards for his reporting on police policies. Albert started his journalism career at Florida International University’s student-run newspaper. He became Editor in Chief his senior year and earned state-wide awards for his investigation into the university spending millions of dollars on palm trees from a shady dealer. In Florida, he spends most weekends knee-deep in the Everglades and looks forward to exploring trails in the Blue Ridge Mountains. When not outdoors, he enjoys reading, writing poetry, and perfecting the sugar-to-coffee ratio for his coladas.
Cassandra Stephenson

Cassandra Stephenson

Cassandra Stephenson covers issues impacting rural West Tennessee for The Tennessee Lookout. Prior to joining The Tennessee Lookout, Cassandra covered Metro Nashville government at The Tennessean for nearly three years, chronicling the consequences of policy decisions for residents in one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. Cassandra's post-collegiate reporting career began in West Tennessee in 2018 when she moved from her hometown in Ventura County, California after graduating from Pepperdine University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. There, she reported on breaking news and justice for a 13-county region, publishing award-winning investigations on local physicians’ involvement in the opioid epidemic and conditions in local for-profit prisons. Cassandra joined The Tennessean as a business reporter in 2020, covering pandemic-related business challenges including unemployment, workplace safety and eviction. Outside of the newsroom, you'll find Cassandra immersed in her latest art project or baking endeavor.