Missouri

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.

Hurubie Meko

Hurubie Meko reports for The Kansas City Star, where she works as part of a team focusing on gun violence in Missouri. Previously, she was the data and visualizations reporter at LNP|LancasterOnline, which covers the news in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where Meko calls home. She has reported on the local criminal justice system's treatment of sexual assault cases in Plain communities, and the impact of COVID-19 on nursing homes. Her investigative series “What's Lurking in Your Well?” examined private well water in Pennsylvania, and won an award from The Lenfest Institute honoring a journalist's outstanding contributions. Prior to graduating from American University in Washington, D.C, in 2016, Meko interned at Amnesty International USA and studied abroad in Morocco.

Karen Robinson-Jacobs

Karen Robinson-Jacobs is a business reporter for The St. Louis American, which covers the African American community in St. Louis, Missouri. This Chi-Town native has been chasing the big story for decades. Most recently she was a freelance journalist with the St. Louis American and NBCBLK.com, writing about issues of concern to African Americans. Robinson-Jacobs spent 15 years reporting for The Dallas Morning News, where she was part of the Pulitzer Prize finalist team lauded for coverage of the 2016 shooting spree that killed five police officers and injured nine others. Prior to that, she spent 15 years with the Los Angeles Times, helping to launch their website. A longtime Midwesterner, Robinson-Jacobs also worked at the Milwaukee Journal, where she was among the first African American editors.

Maria Benevento

Maria Benevento covers education for The Kansas City Beacon, a nonprofit newsroom focused on in-depth public service journalism. Prior to joining The Beacon, she reported on the Missouri state government as an intern for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jefferson City bureau. While earning her master's at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Benevento worked on the education and state government beats, the graphics desk, and as a teaching assistant on the copy desk for the Columbia Missourian, the school's community paper. Benevento's investigative work for the paper focused on the struggles domestic violence victims face while trying to divorce their abusers. She spent two years as an editorial intern at the National Catholic Reporter in Kansas City before heading off to graduate school. Home for Benevento is Kirksville, Missouri.

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.

The Kansas City Beacon

The Kansas City Beacon is a nonprofit, digital-only news outlet based in covering the 2 million metro area and both sides of the state line (Kansas and Missouri). 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 was founded in April 2019 and began publishing in early 2020.

The St. Louis American/Type Investigations

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. Type Investigations is the signature program of the Type Media Center, and provides expert editorial guidance, researchers, and funds for reporting costs to foster investigative reporting.

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.  

Catherine Hoffman

Catherine Hoffman covers rural issues in Missouri for PBS Kansas City. She has interned as a video journalist covering faith stories for the past year, and before that was a video reporting intern at PBS Kansas City. In the spring of 2020 she premiered her first documentary short, “46 Years,” and has explored faith and resilience in her work. She holds a degree in documentary journalism from the University of Missouri with minors in French and black studies. She was raised in Dallas, Texas.