North Carolina

Carolina Public Press

Carolina Public Press plays a distinct role in North Carolina’s news ecosystem. It is the only wholly independent and nonprofit public policy and investigative reporting outlet in the state. It was founded by experienced journalists and is fully independent of advocacy, political platforms or corporate backing. We prioritize community engagement, holding live forums and listening sessions, bringing journalists together with key stakeholders and diverse public participants for rich conversation about news and issues, and actively seeking impactful collaborations.

Lauren Lindstrom

Lauren has been a reporter at The Blade in Toledo for nearly five years, most recently on the health beat covering everything from Ohio’s heroin and opioid epidemic to Toledo’s efforts to reduce childhood lead poisoning. Her work has won several state and local awards for investigation and breaking news, including the Press Club of Toledo’s 2017 Touchstone Award for a series examining the lack of local oversight on homes with unsafe lead levels. Originally from Wisconsin, she interned at the Green Bay Press Gazette and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Lauren majored in journalism with a minor in Spanish at Northwestern University, where she was news editor for North by Northwestern, an independent student magazine.

The Charlotte Observer

The Charlotte Observer is a 132-year-old news organization intensely focused on accountability reporting in south-central North Carolina region and on statewide issues that affect readers from the coast to the mountains. The Charlotte Observer works closely with sister McClatchy papers in the Carolinas to identify and report with impact on the ways that government decisions – or lack of decisions – impact the lives of North Carolinians. As the largest newspaper in the state, The Charlotte Observer frequently challenges denial or closure of public records and seeks relationships with other media organizations to press for disclosure of public information and transparency of government actions. The news organization’s coverage is heavily tilted toward Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, with a focus on watchdog reporting, open records and meetings, deeper storytelling and enterprise writing.

The News & Observer

The News & Observer’s roots go back to 1865, when its predecessor The Sentinel was launched to expose corruption in the Reconstruction era. Among the News & Observer’s many awards are three Pulitzer Prizes, including the 1996 gold medal for public service. The News & Observer is the paper of record in the capital city of North Carolina, covering the statehouse, the legislature and its impact on the lives of all North Carolinians. The newspaper’s mission is to produce fearless and independent public service journalism that gives a voice to underrepresented, unheard groups and communities.

Hannah Critchfield

Hannah Critchfield covers racial disparities in infant and maternal health, women’s health outcomes,  the health of prisoners and gender health for North Carolina Health News. Critchfield previously worked for Phoenix New Times in Arizona, covering immigration and criminal justice in the Grand Canyon state. Her investigative reporting has appeared in The Intercept, VICE, and Documented. A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she focused on workplace abuse within undocumented communities and received the Melvin Mencher Reporting Award for Superior Reporting and the Fred M. Hechinger Award for Education Journalism for her investigation on the re-hiring of university faculty accused of sexual harassment in 2019. She is a graduate of North Park University in Chicago.

Laura Brache

Laura Brache reports for WFAE/La Noticia, a joint project of the Charlotte, North Carolina, NPR affiliate and the largest Spanish language newspaper in North Carolina. She focuses on immigration and deportation issues affecting the area’s booming Hispanic population and engulfing local governments and police. Brache is part of the team at WFMY News in Greensboro, North Carolina that won the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for social media for its coverage of storm damage from a series of tornados. She is a multilingual multimedia journalist from North Carolina who was born in Massachusetts and raised in the Dominican Republic. Most recently she worked as a Production Coordinator at her alma mater, the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media assisting in the production of special student projects. Her journey in broadcasting began at WFMY News 2 in Greensboro, where she covered breaking news, severe weather and everything in between. Brache is a member of the July 2019 cohort of the Syracuse University online Master of Science program specializing in journalism innovation. She expects to complete the program by the end of 2020.

Devna Bose

Devna Bose reports for The Charlotte Observer where she focuses on underserved, underreported communities including the poor, minorities, immigrants and those who identify as LGBTQ. Bose worked as an education reporter in Newark for Chalkbeat during her first year of service for Report for America. She has also worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across Mississippi. She interned at the Neshoba Democrat, Jackson Free Press, Meridian Star and Oxford Eagle. She has covered city government, mental health, the LGBTQ community and other issues. She attended the University of Mississippi, where she served as Managing Editor of the student-run publication, The Daily Mississippian. She has won several awards for her feature writing, photography and design from the Associated Press, Society of Professional Journalists, Southeastern Journalism Conference and the Mississippi Press Association.

Bryan Anderson

Bryan Anderson covers the North Carolina statehouse for The Associated Press where he focuses on health care, education, and politics. Most recently, Anderson was a political reporter for The Sacramento Bee where he created and hosted the “California Nation” podcast and received an award for his investigation of numerous breakdowns of California’s Department of Motor Vehicles automatic voter registration program. He was an investigative reporting fellow for News21 where he unearthed information on how little polluters have spent to clean up the nation’s superfund sites. Anderson has won a slew of awards including being a Regional Finalist for a Society of Professional Journalist General News Reporting honor. He was an enterprise manager for the student paper at Elon University and wrote stories for North Carolina publications including The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer.