California

Erica Hellerstein

Erica is an award-winning investigative journalist born and raised in the Bay Area. She worked as an investigative and political reporter at INDY Week in Raleigh, NC, a researcher and consultant on a VICE documentary, a reporter/researcher at PBS/Frontline and a fellow at the International Women’s Media Foundation, where she covered migration and domestic violence among asylum seekers in Honduras and on the California-Mexico border. Her investigative series on North Carolina’s commercial hog farming industry won the Philip D. Reed Award for Environmental Writing and was a finalist for numerous other awards. She has a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Marie Claire, Elle, and elsewhere, and her investigations have been highlighted in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR. Childhood poverty in San Jose and for The California Divide Project Erica covers childhood poverty in San Jose and the Bay Area as part of “The California Divide.” Poverty is the biggest coverage gap in the state. In response to this, CALmatters, McClatchy’s five California news organizations and the 25 Digital First newsrooms have created a news hub with a collaboration project on the topic. “The California Divide” is an unprecedented news partnership that combines the strengths of respected news-gathering organizations across the state. The shared goal is to build a sustainable and replicable model for data-driven, change-making journalism in this critically underserved coverage area. Report for America has teamed up with three of the new hub’s newsrooms to offer three new corps member placements: CALmatters in Sacramento, The Fresno Bee in Fresno and The Mercury News in San Jose.

ChrisAnna Mink

ChrisAnna Mink is a pediatric infectious diseases specialist and has been a freelance journalist. For more than two decades, she served her community as a successful physician, including working as the Medical Director of at the K.I.D.S. Foster Care Clinic as part of Harbor UCLA Medical Center and as a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. In 2014 she began writing more about about health and ultimately decided to become a health journalist. She got a M.A. from University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and has written about child health issues for the California Health Report and University of Southern California’s Center for Health Journalism. Covering children’s health in the Central Valley, California ChrisAnna focuses on children’s health, both physical and mental, and explores how the paper can inform, educate and help bring about a healthier community. Childhood asthma, obesity, and food insecurity are big issues in Modesto and throughout the Central Valley. Stanislaus, and nearby Tuolumne County, also are among the California counties with the highest number of emergency room visits by children with dental issues, according to the California Department of Public Health. More than 300,000 kids in the Central Valley live in poverty. She works in concert with local schools, state and county health and environmental agencies and local hospitals and a new care center to identify current issues and solutions in children’s health. 

Camille von Kaenel

Camille is an environmental reporter who, for three years, has covered climate change policy for E&E News in Washington, D.C. Her writing has also appeared in Fast Company, Atlas Obscura, The Alpinist, among others. Born in Switzerland and raised in California, she has a bachelor’s in international relations from the University of Geneva and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University in New York. Wildfire recovery in Northern California Camille works with both of these news organizations to cover wildfires in Mendocino and Butte counties. During the summer of 2018, Mendocino County saw the state’s largest wildfire in its history. This after still recovering from the major wildfire in October of 2017. Not six months later, Butte County beat the record. The Camp Fire killed 86 people, destroyed 15,000 structures and displaced thousands. Camille tracks the wildfire recovery processes, reports on the ongoing legislation in Sacramento and digs into the science of how the drought, climate change and more are affecting this problem. Camille produces a mix of local human-interest features on the people recovering, science stories on what is happening and policy stories on the state’s prevention plans including new technology to fight in the future.

CALmatters

About the News Organization: CALmatters is a nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. Environmental regulation, education, health care, criminal justice, economic inequality — the debates on these issues and others have a profound impact on the lives of 38 million Californians and beyond. Our team of experienced journalists, with the time and resources to dig deep, is committed to meaningfully informing Californians about the players, politics, and interests that shape the issues that affect their lives. Over the past year CALmatters set out to continue building a nonprofit platform that would reach a large and influential audience with information and tools that hold politicians accountable and empower Californians to participate meaningfully in their democracy.

The Chico Enterprise-Record and The Ukiah Daily Journal

The Northern California Community Newspapers center around local journalism in the sometimes overlooked north of the state. It is a cohort of 17 small daily or weekly newspapers, including the The Chico Enterprise-Record and The Ukiah Daily Journal. The Enterprise-Record was founded in 1853 with the mission to serve and inform the local Butte community with local news, arts and sports updates. The Ukiah Daily Journal was founded in 1860 as the Dispatch Democrat, also with a mission to serve its community with county and city news.

The Desert Sun

The Desert Sun is a small but mighty newsroom covering the Coachella Valley in Southern California. The Desert Sun is known for its groundbreaking environmental coverage, extensive arts reporting and watchdog journalism. The paper has won numerous awards, including an Edward R. Murrow award for a short film, “Freed But Forgotten: A Proposition 47 Investigation.” As a member of the USA Today network, its reporting regularly also appears in USA Today and 100+ other Gannett Co. papers. In addition to local news coverage, The Desert Sun produces a magazine, DESERT; a music festival called Tachevah; and a community storytelling series.

The Fresno Bee

The Fresno Bee is the primary news source for the central San Joaquin Valley, covering a six-county area that is one of the fastest-growing regions in California. The Fresno Bee’s website is the most-visited website in the region, and its mission is to inform and advocate for the enhancement of life in the Valley.

The Mercury News

The Mercury News is the leading source of breaking news, local news, sports, business, entertainment, lifestyle and opinion for Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

The Modesto Bee

The Modesto Bee, a McClatchy news organization, serves primarily the city of Modesto, Stanislaus County, and its surrounding cities and counties in the heart of California’s Central Valley and the Sierra foothills. The Bee has a rich, 134-year history of serving a diverse community built on agriculture with an eye on diversifying employment sectors in hopes of fending off the “brain drain” that sees many of our youngest and brightest leave for college and never return. Our mission is to connect with readers each day to discover and report on the issues that touch their lives.

The Sacramento Bee

The Sacramento Bee is the only daily newspaper covering California’s capital city. At 161 years old, the news organization is McClatchy’s flagship. The newspaper’s coverage area extends along the I-80 corridor from Lake Tahoe to the East and up to but not necessarily including the Bay Area. The newspaper covers northern California regularly as well as Stockton. In Sacramento, readers expect The Sacramento Bee to hold elected officials at the statehouse to account, and they rely on the newspaper for deep environmental coverage in addition to local government and growth.