New York

Eileen Grench

Eileen is an Olympic fencer-turned-journalist. As a dual Panamanian-American citizen, she competed for the Panamanian team at the 2016 Olympic Games and also won national, Pan-American and World Cup medals. She is currently a fellow at the Global Migration Project at Columbia University, where she has told the stories of Central American women as well as inequities in migrant women’s health — writing for The Intercept, The Nation, and Documented, among others. She has also contributed research to The New York Times. Earlier in her career, she worked as a clinic assistant at Stanford Children’s Hospital, where she served as a Bilingual advocate for documented and undocumented Latino families. She majored in Spanish and international studies at the Ohio State University and received an M.S. from the Columbia University School of Journalism. Juvenile justice in the Bronx Eileen covers justice issues, starting with juvenile justice in the Bronx. The South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the country, is home to Horizon Juvenile Center, which houses nearly one-quarter of the 700 16-and-17-year-olds incarcerated on any given day in the city. The center made headlines recently amid outbreaks of violence. The neighborhood, in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, is also home to Bronx Criminal Court, which no longer has any reporters assigned full-time to the press room. The verdict’s out on the borough’s nearly year-old innovative drug court, which stresses treatment over incarceration as the opioid addiction crisis mounts. The South Bronx, meanwhile, has been designated as the site of one of the local lockups slated to replace Rikers Island, much to the ire of many area residents. Overall, the Bronx is about 85 percent black or Hispanic, roughly mirroring the demographics of Rikers. Eileen uses a combination of data and in-person reporting to explore the human toll and political scope of justice-related issues.

Camalot Todd

Camalot reported on community issues in Las Vegas, including a long-term project on underage sex trafficking, for the Las Vegas Sun and its sister publication, Las Vegas Weekly. For the Sun, she wrote a pathbreaking investigative piece called, “Children on the Cusp: The transition from foster care to adulthood is leaving some behind.” The Nevada Press Association identified this work as the best investigative story of the year and named Camalot the Best Community Reporter of 2017. She also worked as a reporter for KUNV radio. She is a graduate of University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Mental health issues in Buffalo and western New York state According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in five adults live with a mental illness and just over 20 percent of children have had a seriously debilitating mental disorder. Unprecedented changes are roiling the mental health system including Medicaid and Affordable Care Act redesign, and a historic opioid epidemic. The changes mean local governments, health care providers, etc. are constantly having to adapt in order to meet new standards. On top of that, in western New York, there’s a shortage in mental health funding, beds and workforce. Cam focuses on mental health stigma and the state of mental health care in western New York, specifically in Erie, Niagara and Chautauqua counties. With Buffalo being a border city, there’s also the opportunity to look at mental health awareness and treatment in Canada, a country that prides itself on the way it approaches the topic. Spectrum News Buffalo provides training for shooting, editing and using newsroom software, and Cam will have the opportunity to participate in regular storytelling workshops. Additionally, Cam works in conjunction with the Networks Digital team to produce content for distribution on relevant social media channels.

The City

The City is a nonprofit New York digital news outlet dedicated to accountability reporting that serves a wide cross-section of New Yorkers. The push for the site, set to debut in early 2019, came in response to the stark reduction in strong local news sources. The effort, funded so far by major foundations and civic-minded individuals, is led by Editor in Chief Jere Hester, a former NY Daily News city editor, and Executive Director Kai Falkenberg, former First Deputy Commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and a past Forbes newsroom lawyer. The site will be featured on New York magazine’s homepage, and the outlet’s audience-building efforts range from social media outreach to neighborhood-based town hall-style events. Our goal is to break news — and get action — through beat and investigative reporting focused on Albany, City Hall and the city’s five boroughs.

Associated Press

About the News Organization: The Associated Press is a global news agency that began 172 years ago as a cooperative of five New York City newspapers. We have 263 locations in more than 100 countries, providing journalism to roughly 15,000 media outlets around the world. AP sets standards for ethics and excellence. AP 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. We cover every single statehouse, and have beat teams for topics such as immigration, education and state government. AP’s seven news bureaus in the northeast U.S. provide vital local and regional news to 378 newsrooms. Closed Position: The Report for America corps member works in the New York state capitol alongside veteran statehouse staff to report on criminal justice issues across the state, including issues of poverty, race and changing policy on who is prosecuted, how they are incarcerated and how politics in Trump’s America are influencing those trends. The reporter has access to colleagues on the national state government reporting team, data experts and a network of colleagues with deep experience reporting on government. AP’s team of reporters in Washington, D.C. also helps the reporter understand the connections between state and local trends. The reporter produces a balance of spot news and enterprise work, with an emphasis on data-driven stories that can be distributed to AP customers around the state. Preferred Skills: Data journalism

Spectrum News Buffalo

Spectrum News Buffalo provides the Buffalo metropolitan and Western New York area with 24-hour local news, politics, features and weather seven days a week. Whether a sitting Congressman is indicted on federal charges, more than seven feet of lake effect snow blankets the region, or the Buffalo Sabres win a record 10 games in a row, we are on for viewers 24/7. Spectrum News Buffalo seeks to empower Western New Yorkers by providing guidance and resources for them to live a better quality of life in the region.  

Samuel Bojarski

Sam Bojarski covers Brooklyn, N.Y. for The Haitian Times. The new Report for America position allows him to continue working for the paper, but as a staffer. Bojarski has covered Haiti and its diaspora for the Haitian Times as a freelancer since the fall of 2018. Along with the Haitian Times staff, his work on the reporting project “Dashed Dreams: Haiti Since the 2010 Quake,” received grant funding from the Pulitzer Center. As a freelance journalist, Bojarski has covered local news in western Pennsylvania for more than two years, on behalf of Trib Total Media, BeaverCountian.com, PublicSource and other outlets in the Keystone State. He also covered the North American maritime industry for multiple trade publications. In December of 2015, he graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, where he contributed to the student newspaper, The Pitt News, and interned for Pitt Magazine, the university’s alumni publication.