Kentucky

Jasmine Demers

Jasmine Demers reports on issues related to youth, social services and legislative accountability for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit newsroom based in Louisville. Previously, she worked for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, her hometown, covering science, health, government and the pandemic. Following months of local coronavirus coverage, including deaths in Arizona nursing homes, Demers received top awards from the Arizona Newspapers Association. The Arizona Press Club has honored her science reporting. She holds a master's degree from The University of Arizona School of Journalism, where she was editor-in-chief of the student-run Daily Wildcat, and received the Philip Mangelsdorf Award for Outstanding Newsperson of the Year as well as the Douglas D. Martin Award for Courage and Integrity.

Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting

The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom based in Louisville with coverage focused statewide. Our mission is to protect society’s most vulnerable citizens, expose wrongdoing in the public and private sectors, increase transparency in government and hold leaders accountable. KyCIR is the creation of the nonprofit Louisville Public Media, which announced KyCIR’s formation in spring 2013. We are a part of the WFPL newsroom, an NPR affiliate.

Elizabeth Moomey

Liz Moomey reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky where she focuses on watchdog reporting in eastern Kentucky, specifically Pike County. She was a reporter for the Salisbury Post in North Carolina where she covered the city and politics, along with the town of Landis. Her reporting sparked an embezzlement investigation into two town employees. She previously worked at the North State Journal as a reporter and page designer. Moomey has been awarded by the North Carolina Press Association for feature writing, news enterprise reporting and design. She was also a sports clerk and writer for the News & Observer and a web producer for Spectrum News, both in Raleigh, North Carolina. Liz was the editor of North Carolina State University’s yearbook Agromeck, which won the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Gold Crown award. She is a graduate of North Carolina State University and serves on the annual publications advisory board helping to select the incoming editor of the yearbook and literary magazine.

Silas Walker

Silas Walker is a photojournalist at the Lexington Herald-Leader where he helps plug the reporting gap in rural, Eastern Kentucky through visual storytelling. Walker worked as a visual journalist during internships with the Deseret News and a prior stint with the Lexington Herald-Leader and as a student at Western Kentucky University, where he was the visuals editor for the independent student newspaper, the College Heights Herald. He also did freelance work for organizations such as Getty Images and the Los Angeles Times. Walker was named the 2019 Kentucky student photographer of the year by the Kentucky News Photographers Association and placed 7th in the news and feature category in the National Hearst Photojournalism competition. He is originally from Portland, Oregon.

Piper Hudspeth Blackburn

Piper Hudspeth Blackburn covers the Kentucky statehouse for The Associated Press, where she concentrates on issues affecting Appalachia. Before joining Report For America, Hudspeth Blackburn covered politics in Washington, D.C. for audiences in upstate New York and Texas while a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill D.C. program. She grew up in Burlington Township, New Jersey, and graduated cum laude with a B.A. from the University of Southern California, where she majored in journalism and history, focusing on past and present intersections of policy, race and mass media in downtown Los Angeles. She was designated a Renaissance Scholar by the university and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. She received a graduate degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern in May 2020.

Lexington Herald-Leader

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Lexington Herald-Leader and its website Kentucky.com are committed to being Central and Eastern Kentucky’s primary source of news and commentary with the highest standards of journalism. Owned by McClatchy since 2006, the Herald-Leader endeavors to be a rewarding and caring employer and a force for positive change in the community. The newsroom’s 44 journalists focus on breaking news that holds leaders or institutions accountable, makes a concrete difference in the community and tells readers how something will directly impact their lives.  

Lexington Herald-Leader

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Lexington Herald-Leader and its website Kentucky.com are committed to being Central and Eastern Kentucky’s primary source of news and commentary with the highest standards of journalism. Owned by McClatchy since 2006, the Herald-Leader endeavors to be a rewarding and caring employer and a force for positive change in the community. The newsroom’s 44 journalists focus on breaking news that holds leaders or institutions accountable, makes a concrete difference in the community and tells readers how something will directly impact their lives.  

Lexington Herald-Leader

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Lexington Herald-Leader and its website Kentucky.com are committed to being Central and Eastern Kentucky’s primary source of news and commentary with the highest standards of journalism. Owned by McClatchy since 2006, the Herald-Leader endeavors to be a rewarding and caring employer and a force for positive change in the community. The newsroom’s 44 journalists focus on breaking news that holds leaders or institutions accountable, makes a concrete difference in the community and tells readers how something will directly impact their lives.

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.

89.3 WFPL News Louisville

WFPL’s history dates back to 1950, when the mayor and the director of the Louisville Free Public Library created Louisville’s first public radio station. Our metro area is medium-sized (approximately 1.3 million people). We are a journalism-first operation, and we produce daily stories and deeper investigations via broadcast, digital audio and online. We’re part of a robust community-supported public media nonprofit (Louisville Public Media) that includes three radio stations, an investigative reporting center (the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting), a statewide network (Kentucky Public Radio), a regional journalism collaboration (the Ohio Valley ReSource) and an online events calendar.