Florida

Rose Wong

Rose Wong covers health care and mental health for the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. She interned for the paper in 2020, where she reported on breaking news, COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes and the pandemic's impact on service workers. As a cancer survivor, Wong has seen firsthand the complexities of life as a patient in the American health care system, thereby developing an interest in contributing clarity and justice through health journalism. She holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Duke University, where she was senior editor of The Chronicle, the student-run media organization. Her investigative series exposing a pattern of misdiagnoses and inadequate care within Duke Student Health earned her the Melcher Family Award for Excellence in Journalism's top honor, and her reporting became part of a national college health story published by The Washington Post. Home for Wong is Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Miami Herald

The Miami Herald is a regional news organization that focuses its coverage on South Florida and the surrounding region of the Caribbean and Latin America, to which most of its residents have ties. It's one of the most diverse areas of the country. The largest county in our market, Miami-Dade, has a population that is more than 65 percent foreign born. The Herald has a strong tradition of accountability journalism, and has won more Pulitzer Prizes (22) than any news organization in the Southeast United States

Tampa Bay Times

The Tampa Bay Times is the largest newspaper in Florida, with a rich, award-winning history of investigative, narrative and enterprise journalism. We have 120 journalists covering three counties and the state of Florida. That includes reporters and editors across news, investigations, enterprise, features, sports and digital. Our ownership structure is unique in journalism, preserved by our late visionary owner, Nelson Poynter. He bequeathed the newspaper to a school for journalists here in St. Petersburg, now known as the Poynter Institute, to protect our independence. We take that independence very seriously, focusing our resources on distinct, exceptional reporting. Our mission as a news organization traces back to our founding in 1884: to report the truth and contribute to an informed society. That mission depends on maintaining our credibility within the community. Poynter said it best in 1961: “When we turn to history we can draw inspiration from those who risked their necks and their economic lives to keep the free press free. Every year newspapers are cited for Pulitzer prizes and other awards in recognition of spectacular crusades and courage. But we have an even greater daily triumph of American journalism in helping to fulfill less spectacular but imperative needs. Without these self-government cannot endure.”

Tampa Bay Times

The Tampa Bay Times is the largest newspaper in Florida, with an award-winning history of investigative, narrative and enterprise journalism. We have 126 journalists covering three counties and the state of Florida. That includes 63 reporters and 25 editors. Ambition runs deep. In the past six months, our reporters uncovered an intelligence-based policing program in nearby Pasco County meant to stop crime before it happened. As the pandemic took hold, we built a Scrapbook to capture what was happening to people’s lives, organizing dozens of contributions from readers. And we're two years into an astonishing story about black cemeteries across the Tampa Bay area that time and development forgot. The ownership structure is unique in journalism. The visionary owner, Nelson Poynter, bequeathed the newspaper to a school for journalists here in St. Petersburg, now known as the Poynter Institute, to protect our independence.

The Haitian Times

The Haitian Times was founded in 1999 as a weekly English-language newspaper based in Brooklyn, NY. Since 2012, it has morphed into an online-only publication broadening its audience to include Haitians from all over the world. Our readers are thought leaders and decision makers in their families and communities. The news outlet is widely regarded as the most authoritative voice for Haitian Diaspora.  

WUFT News

WUFT News is a multiplatform, bilingual student-driven public media newsroom, housed in the Innovation News Center at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, and based in Gainesville. It began as WUFT-TV (a PBS affiliate), first airing in 1958, followed by WUFT-FM (an NPR affiliate) in 1981. In 2012, the TV, radio and digital news operations converged into one newsroom to cover north central Florida. The newsroom focuses on a 13-county area.

Molly Duerig

Molly Duerig reports for Spectrum News 13, a cable news television channel in Central Florida, where she focuses on the region’s housing crisis. Duerig is a multimedia journalist with a background in video production. While pursuing her master’s degree from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, she covered local breaking news for The Arizona Republic and traveled to Peru to report on the impacts of mass migration of Venezuelan children and families. She also reported on U.S. natural disaster recovery and response as a Hearst Foundation Fellow with News21, directing a 26-minute documentary episode about flooding across the U.S. that was part of the EPPY award winning documentary series “State of Emergency.” Originally from Pittsburgh, Duerig previously worked in the nonprofit sector as a youth media educator and program manager. Her work has won recognition from Investigative Reporters and Editors, Society of Professional Journalists, Editor & Publisher Magazine and the Broadcast Education Association.

Bailey LeFever

Bailey LeFever reports for the Tampa Bay Times where she focuses on senior citizens who are often overlooked by the media. LeFever examines everything from health care to culture, government policy to family dynamics. Most recently, LeFever covered local government at the Miami Herald, where she wrote stories on the ways the coronavirus has challenged elders and minority groups in the city. Previously she interned at the Palm Beach Post, both on the breaking news and the community teams. Over the past few years, LeFever has traveled to Cuba to cover the illegal Hawksbill sea turtle trade, reported from a canoe on the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, and hung out with tennis star Coco Gauff at teen phenom’s family’s sports bar. She has also photographed NCAA baseball and softball playoffs for the University of Florida Athletic Association. LeFever studied journalism and history at the University of Florida. While in college, she wrote for the local NPR station, WUFT News and interned at the Gainesville Sun. She was also managing editor of her college newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator. LeFever grew up in Ocala, Florida.

Yadira Lopez

Yadira Lopez covers economic mobility for The Miami Herald. She’s part of a team effort to examine how the Miami-Dade area has shifted from a place where a middle income provided a comfortable life for hundreds of thousands to a metropolis beset by a housing crisis and severe inequality. Lopez has covered Latino issues for the Malheur Enterprise in Vale, Oregon, as a member of Report for America. She previously worked at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida and was editor at the Catalyst, the student paper at New College of Florida, where she received her undergraduate degree. She has worked as an English language assistant in France. Born in Santa Clara, Cuba, she grew up in Miami, Florida.

Syra Ortiz-Blanes

Syra Ortiz-Blanes covers Latin America and the Caribbean, and its many connections to Florida, for El Nuevo Herald in Miami. Ortiz-Blanes, a Puerto Rican journalist with a background in print and radio, covered hurricane evacuees in Philadelphia through a multimedia series she created on her own called “Las Voces de María” (The Voices of Maria), which raised thousands of dollars and secured housing for a displaced family and resources for hurricane survivors. Since then, Ortiz-Blanes has reported on Latinos in the U.S. and beyond. She graduates from the Columbia Journalism School in May 2020. During her time there, she spent a month in Puerto Rico covering gender violence in the wake of the 2020 earthquakes. Before Columbia, Ortiz-Blanes was the podcast coordinator and assistant editor for The Philadelphia Citizen, a solutions journalism media outlet. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Documented NY, WHYY (NPR), and others. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania magna cum laude and was selected as a Kelly Writer’s House Junior Fellow.