Indiana

Aubrey Wright

Aubrey Wright is a multimedia journalist covering equity in higher education for WFIU/WTIU Indiana Public Media in Bloomington, Indiana. Prior to joining WFIU/WTIU, she worked alongside The Columbus Dispatch’s metro desk as a full-time intern and freelanced for The Columbus Jewish News. She produced a multimedia enterprise project on the rise of gunfire into family homes in Columbus and served in The Columbus Dispatch’s award-winning Mobile Newsroom while covering education, health, crime and business. She is a recent graduate of The Ohio State University, where she earned a B.A. in journalism and served as managing editor for content at The Lantern, the student newspaper. As managing editor, she covered Ohio State’s biggest issues, including police violence and its presence on campus, multiple criminal trials and a decades-long sexual abuse scandal.

WFIU/WTIU News – Indiana Public Media

WFIU/WTIU News is the NPR/PBS affiliate covering southern and central Indiana. Our radio and television newsrooms were among the first public operations to converge in 2010, reporting across platforms for radio, television and digital. Each day we produce 10 radio newscasts, two television newsbreaks, and a daily e-newsletter, plus weekly shows, features and a robust news website that serves our region with local news. Our team provides young journalists with excellent editorial support and mentoring.

Abriana Herron

Abriana Herron covers the role of Black churches in the Indianapolis, Indiana community for the Indianapolis Recorder. A recent graduate with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University Bloomington—she has also studied a semester abroad at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England—Herron wrote for Indiana’s student paper, covering racial disparities, government policies, among other news. She interned with the Recorder and she is excited to return to the nation’s fourth oldest Black newspaper as a full-time reporter.

Arleigh Rodgers

Arleigh Rodgers covers the Indiana Legislature with an emphasis on K-12 education for The Associated Press. Before joining the AP, Rodgers was a general assignment reporter for the Las Vegas Sun, where she also reported, produced and hosted a podcast, “Heating Up,” which investigated the link between extreme heat and mental health among Las Vegas’ homeless and low-income residents. Holding a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College, she was a multimedia reporter for the student-run paper, The Ithacan, editor of Year in Review, a magazine and host of “Re:Mixing,” a music podcast. Rodgers’ work has earned awards from the New York Press Association, the Associated Collegiate Press and the College Media Association.

Caroline Beck

Caroline Beck covers K-12 education in Indianapolis, Indiana for the IndyStar, reporting on all 11 school districts in Marion County. Prior to joining the IndyStar, she covered the state legislature for Alabama Daily News, and also reported on education, prisons and parole boards, unemployment benefits and health care. Her interest in journalism began in college where she reported for the student-run paper, including covering a Ku Klux Klan rally and cutbacks in college staffing, then becoming the paper’s editor. She has interned for In These Times magazine in Chicago. A native of Speedway, a town on the west side of Indianapolis, Beck has attended the Indy 500 every year since 2016.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate and unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day.

Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper

The Indianapolis Recorder is a news site and a weekly paper, published for 126 years. This news organization serves the Black community of Indianapolis, and aims to educate, engage and empower readers so they can thrive.

IndyStar

IndyStar, also known as The Indianapolis Star, is a daily paper that began publishing in 1903, and the only major daily in the city. This news organization serves the people of central Indiana, via print, mobile and online, and is part of the Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper chain. In 2021, the paper won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, and earlier investigative reporting earned the paper two Pulitzer Prizes.

Katrina Pross

Katrina Pross covers criminal justice for WFYI Public Media, Indiana's chief PBS and NPR member station, based in Indianapolis. Pross grew up in Eagan, Minnesota and has reported on the courts and criminal justice for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, including the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd—she was one of the select pool reporters rotating inside the courtroom. Pross has also reported on criminal justice reform and COVID-19 outbreaks in Minnesota prisons. She double majored in journalism and French at the University of Minnesota, where she was a reporter and editor at the school's paper, The Minnesota Daily. Pross has interned at APM Reports, the Star Tribune, and a radio station in France during a study-abroad program. She graduated in 2020, and was named the Daily's Editor of the Year.

Brandon Drenon

Brandon Drenon is a Social Justice and Equity reporter at the IndyStar in Indianapolis, Indiana, covering the black and brown communities of the greater metro Indy area. Prior to Brandon’s arrival in Indiana, he was a video producer for BBC Reel, a digitally native platform of the British Broadcasting Corporation, where he reported on health and wellness topics as well as Black culture. Brandon also worked as a production assistant on the documentary Whose Vote Counts, a PBS Frontline production, which was recently nominated for a Peabody Award. In 2020, Brandon received his master’s in journalism from Columbia University to build upon his writing career as a freelance contributor for the Huffington Post and New York Post.