Colorado

Priya Shahi

Before joining Rocky Mountain PBS, Priya Shahi was a reporter for the Staten Island Advance, covering public health and human-interest stories, including disparities in maternal health outcomes and the region’s response to the mental health crisis. Her passion for journalism began after moving from Nepal to Queens, New York — one of the world’s most diverse places — where every block held untold stories. Today, she holds a master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University.

Rocky Mountain PBS

Rocky Mountain Public Media (Rocky Mountain PBS, KUVO JAZZ 89.3FM, and THE DROP 104.7FM) exists to strengthen the civic fabric of Colorado through public media. Statewide operations provide informative and educational content via television, radio, and digital platforms to five million Coloradans each year. The Rocky Mountain PBS newsroom aims to create a Colorado where everyone feels seen and heard. Maintaining a presence in underserved rural counties helps the Journalism Team achieve that mission.
Lia Salvatierra

Lia Salvatierra

Lia Salvatierra covers all local government for the Ouray Plaindealer. Prior to joining the Plaindealer, she reported for a number of non-profit news organizations, including an internship at Wyofile, where she reported on Wyoming's education systems and Latinx and Indigenous communities. She has completed additional research internships from Minneapolis, MN, to Berlin, Germany. Lia is a California native and recent graduate from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. When she’s not hopping on an interview, she loves leading outdoor excursions from North Carolina’s mountains to beaches for her peers.

Ouray County Plaindealer

The Ouray County Plaindealer is a weekly newspaper. It’s been operating since 1877, since miners and other settlers came to this mountainous area of Colorado to seek their fortunes and make a living. Today, the Plaindealer’s readership includes locals whose families have been in the area for just as long as the newspaper, as well as newcomers who have moved to Ouray County after retiring or to work in the tourism industry. One of the notable things about the Plaindealer’s circulation is we deliver to 41 states—and are discovering that many of these subscribers are part-time residents or folks who wish to move here someday. The Plaindealer is the paper of record for Ouray County, and it’s what people rely on to know what happened at city and town council meetings, who said what at the school board retreat, and what happened to that bear that was wandering around town breaking into people’s houses. The Plaindealer’s publishers, a couple who bought the newspaper in April 2019, are longtime Colorado journalists who left the largest newspaper in the western half of the state to purchase the weekly and bring quality journalism to the publication. They believe that even small, rural places deserve good journalism.

Daniel Schmidt

Daniel Schmidt covers local government accountability in Ouray County, Colorado, for the Ouray County Plaindealer. Prior to joining the Plaindealer, Schmidt was the community reporter at The Plainsman, Auburn University's award-winning student newspaper, where he covered local government, elections, breaking news, crime and community events. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Troy University and a bachelor's in journalism from Auburn University.

Jackie Sedley

Jackie Sedley covers all things environment and climate for KGNU in Boulder, CO. Before moving to Mountain Time, she lived in sunny California working as the Internal News Director for KCSB-FM in Santa Barbara. Her journalism career thus far has also included freelancing for the New York Times, fill-in producing and freelance reporting for KCRW and working as Editor-in-Chief for her community college newspaper. Sedley was introduced to journalism during her sophomore year of high school, when she joined her high school newspaper as a novice staff writer. After working her way up to News Editor and eventually Editor-in-Chief, she realized her thirst for reporting was truly unquenchable. Over the past 10 years Sedley has covered raging fires, housing crises, local elections, protests and more. Journalism is both the reason Jackie Sedley wakes up in the morning, and the reason she does not sleep enough at night.

Ouray County Plaindealer

The Ouray County Plaindealer is a weekly newspaper. It’s been operating since 1877, since miners and other settlers came to this mountainous area of Colorado to seek their fortunes and make a living. Today, the Plaindealer’s readership includes locals whose families have been in the area for just as long as the newspaper, as well as newcomers who have moved to Ouray County after retiring or to work in the tourism industry. One of the notable things about the Plaindealer’s circulation is we deliver to 41 states—and are discovering that many of these subscribers are part-time residents or folks who wish to move here someday. The Plaindealer is the paper of record for Ouray County, and it’s what people rely on to know what happened at city and town council meetings, who said what at the school board retreat, and what happened to that bear that was wandering around town breaking into people’s houses. The goal is to provide The Plaindealer’s publishers, a couple who bought the newspaper in April 2019, are longtime Colorado journalists who left the largest newspaper in the western half of the state to purchase the weekly and bring quality journalism to the publication. They believe that even small, rural places deserve good journalism.

KGNU

KGNU broadcasts a mix of local, state, national and world news, philosophical and cultural programs, and eclectic music. In order to achieve our mission to amplify underserved voices through the production of diverse programs, KGNU works through a participatory media lens, inviting and training others to join the mission. Four years ago we launched an equity reporting initiative and a broader media training program to prioritize local reporting in Boulder County. KGNU serves Boulder, Denver and much of the northern Front Range of Colorado.

Emily Capetillo

Emily Capetillo covers housing challenges in Denver, Colorado for KOA radio, a news, talk and sports station. A first-generation college graduate, she recently earned her degree at the University of North Texas. As a podcast intern at KERA, the NPR affiliate based in Dallas and serving North Texas, Capetillo wrote and narrated for “Consider This.” She is a native of South Texas, and got her start in journalism in college when she covered local news in Denton, Texas, including stories about affordable housing, decriminalization of marijuana, nonprofits and COVID-19. In her spare time, Capetillo enjoys cooking, taking care of her plants and journaling.

Jesse Bedayn

Jesse Bedayn reports on Colorado’s Statehouse with a focus on housing for The Associated Press. A second-year corps member, he previously covered California’s wealth inequality for The Mercury News and CalMatters, connecting policy decisions to the voices of those impacted on the ground. An investigation by Bedayn exposed how low-income seniors become stranded in nursing homes and how their pleas for help go unanswered. That investigation was carried over from his work at the Investigative Reporting Program and as a stringer for The New York Times. He holds a master’s degree in narrative writing and investigative reporting from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Kent in England. Having grown up in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, Bedayn can be found bumming around the wild or woodworking.