Louisiana

Safura Syed

Safura Syed was a newsroom fellow at Verite News in New Orleans before continuing as an education reporter through Report for America. During first year at Verite News, Syed reported on environmental justice issues and energy sustainability. Born and raised in Metro Detroit, Syed covered health and culture stories in the city as an intern for WDIV, the local NBC affiliate. Syed's journalism career started in high school and continued into college at the University of Michigan's student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, where she was an editor. Syed holds a bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology and creative writing.

Christiana Botic

Christiana Botic is a visual journalist for Verite News in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to joining Verite News, she received a master’s degree from Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication and worked as a freelancer for a number of publications, including The Washington Post and The New York Times. She also completed internships at the Evansville Courier and Press and the Boston Globe. Her career as a photographer began when she lived with, and documented, her grandmother in Serbia. As a National Geographic-Fulbright Fellow, she explored themes of identity, culture, migration and memory in the Balkans. Her work often investigates the intergenerational impacts of inequity and violence on communities, with a focus on how people challenge systems of oppression—from finding joy and connection in everyday life to forming social movements.

Alex Cox

Alex Cox is a graduate from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. They worked at a variety of newsrooms in the Missouri News Network, with their primary newsroom being KBIA, the NPR affiliate for Mid-Missouri. In their many jobs, they've wore many hats, but their favorite type of reporting is working with audio and data. They believe in trying to take themselves out of the story as much as possible to let their sources tell the story.

Justin O’Connor

Prior to joining Report for America, O’Connor produced data-driven investigations as an intern for The Buffalo News and in-depth feature stories as a reporter for the Rochester Beacon in New York. He has covered everything from the Starbucks unionization movement to pro-Palestine protests and local housing issues. His journalism career started when he joined the Campus Times at the University of Rochester as a first-year student and dove into coverage of the city’s Black Lives Matter protests before going on to become a staple in the paper’s news and features sections. He served as news editor, managing editor, and editor-in-chief for the paper, winning two New York Press Association awards along the way — one for producing the best college newspaper feature story in the state in 2022 and another for leading the state’s second-best overall college newspaper in 2024. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and English: Language, Media, and Communications from the University of Rochester.

Verite News

Verite News, a Black-led, nonprofit newsroom, was founded in 2022 by two veterans of the Times-Picayune, Terry Baquet and David Francis. Verite has a two-fold mission: to use the power of journalism to expose and dismantle inequities that affect vulnerable populations and to educate the next generation of journalists through our news fellowship program.

WRKF

WRKF Baton Rouge Public Radio was founded in 1980 by community members to inform and entertain area residents. It provided NPR news, cultural programming, and local news reporting. Now, in addition to broadcasting news coverage, WRKF produces podcasts and online news. The station increased its capacity for local news reporting by partnering with WWNO public radio in the neighboring city of New Orleans in 2017. The combined newsroom now has a ten-person news team.

Verite News

Verite News, a Black-led, nonprofit newsroom, was founded in 2022 by two veterans of the Times-Picayune, Terry Baquet and David Francis. Verite has a two-fold mission: to use the power of journalism to expose and dismantle inequities that affect vulnerable populations and to educate the next generation of journalists through our news fellowship program.

The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate

The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate is a digital-only media entity. We're part of the Georges Media family which includes NOLA.com, The Advocate and The Acadiana Advocate. We serve a metro area of 400,000 with a staff of 11 reporters, editors and a photographer. We use our website, newsletters, breaking news emails and alerts to keep our community informed. We’re known for providing in-depth coverage explained in an easy-to-understand way.
Elise Plunk

Elise Plunk

Before joining Louisiana Illuminator, Plunk earned her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Florida, where she worked as editor-in-chief of Atrium magazine, a narrative nonfiction outlet on campus. She also worked as an environmental communications intern for the Thompson Earth Systems Institute, where she wrote feature stories and produced social media content on environmental topics relevant to Floridians, and as a climate journalist fellow at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. Plunk's favorite class in college was environmental journalism, where she learned to connect her passion for the natural world with her studies in reporting. When she isn't working, she loves making art from upcycled materials.

Jack Brook

Before joining The Associated Press, Brook lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for three and a half years, initially arriving as a Henry Luce Scholar. He has since worked as a freelance journalist covering Southeast Asia with a focus on human rights and environmental issues. His reporting has appeared in a range of publications, including The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Nikkei Asia, Mongabay and Vice World News. He also served as an editor with CamboJA News, one of Cambodia's last independent media outlets at the time. He grew up in Palo Alto, California, and graduated from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in history. He speaks conversational Khmer and Spanish and once attended an elephant’s wedding.