Missouri

Ashley Winters

Ashley Winters is reporting for the St. Louis American, covering news impacting African Americans in the St. Louis metro area which includes education, business and entertainment. Winters is from St. Louis, Missouri and attended Columbia College Chicago, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism with a concentration in Magazine Article Writing. After graduation, her roots called her back home to be the watchdog for Black and Brown communities impacted by racial and social/ economic disparities in the St. Louis region. Winters has worked for local media outlets including the Nine Network of Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio, St. Louis Magazine, the St. Louis American Newspaper, and Northsider Newspaper. She is a two-time award recipient of the Excellence in Poverty Journalism Award. In 2019 she published her first children's book, called Memories Of A Bunny Rabbit, and received a Mission Attempt award. She has volunteered for the St. Louis City School District teaching fourth- through sixth-graders journalism, showing the importance of Black voices, and telling stories about our communities. Winters' latest project is gardening; she plans to donate fresh produce to poor Black and brown communities to help fight food apartheid in the St.  Louis region.

Clara Bates

Clara Bates reports on gaps in the social safety net for the Missouri Independent, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative journalism. A recent graduate of Harvard University with a concentration in social studies, she also studied Russian and spent a summer in Moscow. Bates has written for Fifteen Minutes—the weekly magazine of The Harvard Crimson student paper— about a controversial congressional orientation and an early 20th-century class war among students. As an intern for Nevada Current, she wrote about laid-off convention workers and unregulated funeral homes, and while reporting on an anti-union hiring fair, Bates was ejected from a casino.

Eva Tesfaye

Eva Tesfaye covers air and water quality from Kansas City, Missouri for Harvest Public Media, a collaborative network of reporters and stations in the Midwest. She is part of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, a reporting network across the Basin. Prior to this, Tesfaye was a producer at NPR’s daily science podcast “Short Wave.” As an NPR Kroc fellow, she produced for “Weekend Edition,” reported for NPR’s national desk, helped start a podcast about the federal executions carried out under the Trump administration for NPR member station WFIU, and reported from Birmingham, Alabama for the regional collaboration, the Gulf States Newsroom. Tesfaye joined NPR after graduating from Columbia University with a bachelor’s in English and a minor in French and Francophone studies.

The Kansas City Beacon

The Kansas City Beacon is a non-profit online news outlet focused on in-depth journalism in the public interest. It launched in March 2020 and is part of The Beacon, a regional nonprofit news network serving Kansas and Missouri. Beacon stories are revelatory, contextual, data-driven and solutions-driven. Our reporting centers around issues in healthcare, education, economics, environment and civic engagement.

Harvest Public Media

KCUR is the flagship NPR station in Kansas City, Missouri, connecting people to ideas and to each other through news reporting, thoughtful conversations and arts and culture. The station is operated as an editorially independent community service of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, broadcasting 24 hours a day and online. KCUR also leads three public media collaborations: Harvest Public Media, the Kansas News Service and NPR's Midwest Newsroom, a four-state regional news hub.

The Missouri Independent

The Missouri Independent was founded in October 2020 with a mission to fill the gap in state Capitol coverage created by downsizing newsrooms. This nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization focuses on in-depth, enterprise reporting in the public interest, and provides that work at no charge to readers and other news organizations around the state. It is the largest news organization solely focused on state government and politics in Missouri.

The St. Louis American

The St. Louis American has covered the African American community since 1928. The Black-owned newspaper is now the largest weekly newspaper in Missouri. The American also is a 13-time recipient of the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s Russwurm Award, which recognizes the top African-American newspaper in the country. 

Kansas City PBS

Kansas City PBS has a long tradition of public service that has laid the foundation for expanding its news gathering relationship with our community. Our content platforms — television, radio, digital, social media and educational outreach — exist to serve the diversity of our region. We explore complicated issues with thoughtful reporting. We share the diverse stories of people, places, and progress in our community. We advance conversations through community engagement and social media. Specifically, Kansas City PBS operates four KCPT-related public television channels; KTBG 90.9 The Bridge, an NPR-affiliated AAA music station; and FlatlandKC, an online digital magazine; in addition to social media and community events.  

Cami Koons

Cami Koons covers rural affairs in the communities surrounding Kansas City for Kansas City PBS. Koons has served as a volunteer features reporter for The Eudora Times, a paper dedicated to bringing news back to a small Kansas town. Reporting for The Times taught Koons the importance of community journalism which led her to Report for America. Throughout the pandemic, Koons has worked with Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health as a communications intern to help inform her community about COVID safety and local guidelines. Koons was also heavily involved with 90.7 FM KJHK, the campus radio station at the University of Kansas, where she produced video, audio, print and on-air content. In 2020, Koons received local and national awards for her reporting with KJHK and for her weekly French radio show. Koons spent a semester in France and is known to show up to gatherings armed with baguette, cheese and a playlist of French tunes.

Emily Wolf

Emily Wolf reports for The Kansas City Beacon, a nonprofit digital news outlet based in Kansas City, Missouri. Wolf is a local government accountability reporter with a focus on telling meaningful stories through data. Before joining The Beacon, she worked as an editorial associate for Investigative Reporters & Editors. Wolf grew up in Round Rock, Texas, and while pursuing her bachelor's at the University of Missouri School of Journalism she covered state government for two years for the Columbia Missourian, the school's community paper. In 2020 Wolf was a Dow Jones News Fund data intern and received an award from the Missouri Press Association for her reporting on child care legislation. She was a 2019 finalist for a student IRE award.