Kansas

The Wichita Beacon

The Wichita Beacon is a nonprofit, digital-only news outlet based Wichita, Kansas, launching in Summer 2021. Our mission: To spur reforms in the public interest by shining light on wrongdoings and abuse by government, businesses and other institutions in the region through in-depth, solutions-driven journalism. The Beacon’s sister newsroom in Kansas City was founded in April 2019 and began publishing in early 2020.

The Wichita Beacon

The Wichita Beacon is a nonprofit, digital-only news outlet based Wichita, Kansas, launching in Summer 2021. Our mission: To spur reforms in the public interest by shining light on wrongdoings and abuse by government, businesses and other institutions in the region through in-depth, solutions-driven journalism. The Beacon’s sister newsroom in Kansas City was founded in April 2019 and began publishing in early 2020.

Jazzlyn Johnson

Jazzlyn Johnson reports for The Community Voice, a publication that focuses on African-American communities. While The Voice began in Wichita, Kansas, it has expanded to include Kansas City, Missouri, where Johnson focuses on violent crime, affordable housing and other issues of concern. Before this, she was an editorial intern for the Outdoor Writers Association of America’s membership magazine Outdoors Unlimited. She has also worked with Garden City Harvest, a local nonprofit in Missoula, Montana, as a public outreach intern. While earning her B.A. at the University of Montana School of Journalism, Johnson covered Montana’s legislation surrounding the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s crisis. Johnson’s reporting on the legislature for the Montana Native News Project sparked national attention and she was consulted for one of MTV’s True Life Crime episodes. The project as a whole is a finalist for an Online Journalism Award.

Andrew Tsubasa Field

Andy Tsubasa Field covers the Kansas Legislature for The Associated Press, concentrating on the fallout from the state’s revenue shortfall. Most recently, Field wrote about local government for The Bismarck Tribune in North Dakota’s capital city, where his coverage of the community’s response to a refugee resettlement proposal drew national attention. Prior to joining the Tribune, he had internships at The Tennessean, The Chronicle of Higher Education, St. Louis Public Radio, Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Eugene Weekly. A graduate of the University of Oregon, Field was born in Tokyo and grew up in Singapore, before moving to the Houston area when he was 17. He is a Chips Quinn Scholar and was awarded ProPublica’s Diversity Scholarship. In 2016, He was also awarded a Certificate of Merit for Personality Profile from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.  

Megan Stringer

Megan Stringer reports for the Wichita Eagle, where she focuses on issues facing the working class including the decline in unions and changes to state worker compensation laws. (Wichita is a major manufacturing center.)  It’s a perfect fit for Stringer, who covered business and economic development for the Wausau Daily Herald and across Wisconsin for the USA Today Network. Her stories touched on everything from manufacturing to restaurants. While in school, Stringer was an associate editor for 14 East Magazine in Chicago, the Online student-run Publication of DePaul University where she focused on engagement and multimedia journalism. She also interned in the consumer investigation unit of NBC5 Chicago. Stringer grew up in the greater St. Louis area.

Sarah Spicer

Sarah Spicer reports for The Wichita Eagle and focuses on climate change in the region. While many news stories focus on climate change on the coasts, Kansas and the Midwest are seeing its effects, too, in terms of everything from extreme weather to cattle prices. An award winning investigative reporter, Spicer has been studying investigative techniques at The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for the past year. While there, she worked as a student assistant for Columbia Journalism Investigations in partnership with ProPublica, investigating dating apps and sexual assault. She was Editor-in-Chief of her college paper, The Bulletin, at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas, for two years. While there, she wrote a groundbreaking investigative series about a professor who sexually assaulted an undergraduate student and how the university handled Title IX cases. The Kansas Press Association awarded the piece the best investigative story of the year, and The Bulletin won the Liberty Bell Award for Outstanding Service from the Chase and Lyon County Bar Association and the Above and Beyond Award from the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for the coverage. Spoon was born and raised in Neodesha, Kansas.

The Wichita Eagle

The Wichita Eagle was founded in 1872 and is the dominant news organization in south-central Kansas. The Eagle was at the forefront of the civic journalism movement and is known for the skills and experience it provides reporters looking to work at large news organizations.  

Associated Press

The Associated Press is a global news agency that began 172 years ago as a cooperative of five New York City newspapers. With 263 locations in more than 100 countries, AP provides journalism to roughly 15,000 media outlets around the world. AP sets standards for ethics and excellence, and has won 52 Pulitzer Prizes, including the 2016 gold medal for Public Service for an investigation into labor abuses in the seafood industry, reports that freed more than 2,000 slaves. AP’s seven news bureaus in the northeast U.S. provide vital local and regional news to 378 newsrooms.

The Wichita Eagle

The Wichita Eagle was founded in 1872 and is the dominant news organization in south-central Kansas. The Eagle was at the forefront of the civic journalism movement and is known for the skills and experience it provides reporters looking to work at large news organizations.  

The Community Voice

The Community Voice is a bi-weekly, state-wide publication that targets Kansas' African-American community. The publication was founded in 1993, and purchased by the Gooch family in 1996. The publication was originally a monthly, and has been bi-weekly for almost two decades. Until 2015, our coverage area was predominately the Wichita community, but we've expanded into the Kansas City market, focusing heavily on the Kansas side of the metropolitan area. Again, in response to a request to expand, we formally expanded our coverage in 2018 to include the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area.