Oregon

Claire Rush

Claire Rush reports on state government for The Associated Press in Portland, Oregon. Prior to joining the AP, Rush lived in France for nine years. She worked for France 24 television and Radio France Internationale, state-funded international news broadcasters, in various roles—news desk reporter, anchor and producer. Fluent in French, Rush earned a master’s degree in journalism from the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she double majored in geography and French. Rush loves maps and cooking.

Jarrette Werk

Jarrette Werk is the Indigenous affairs reporter for Underscore, a nonprofit digital news organization with a focus on Indian Country and other marginalized coverage areas, based in Portland, Oregon. Werk is a multimedia journalist, and a recent graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Originally from Montana, he is a proud member of the Aaniiih and Nakoda tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Community. Werk was an associate producer for Nevada Public Radio’s “Native Nevada Podcast,” a podcast series highlighting the culture, issues, and perseverance of the 27 tribal nations in present-day Nevada, and he has interned with First Nation Focus magazine. One of Werk’s passions is portrait photography, and his ultimate goal is to take a portrait of at least one member of every tribal nation throughout Indian County. Currently, there are nearly 600 tribes in the U.S.

Rose Wong

Rose Wong covers early childhood education for The Oregonian/OregonLive in Portland. Wong graduated from Duke University, where she was senior editor of the student paper, The Chronicle. In 2020, she won top honors in the university’s Melcher Family Award for Excellence in Student Journalism, which recognized her series exposing a pattern of misdiagnoses and inadequate care at the Duke Student Health Center. The reported columns and Wong’s personal story of misdiagnosis were recognized in a Washington Post investigation on college health centers across the country. As a college intern for the Tampa Bay Times, Wong covered breaking news, while reporting on the outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the region’s nursing homes and the operational failures that enabled it. Wong speaks fluent Cantonese and Mandarin, and is from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Sami Edge

Sami Edge covers higher education with a focus on community college for The Oregonian/Oregon Live, which is based in Portland. Edge has reported on public safety for The Santa Fe New Mexican, and wrote about K-12 schools in Idaho for the nonprofit newsroom, Idaho Education News. She was an American Press Institute community listening fellow, and is a graduate of the University of Oregon, where she edited the independent student paper, The Emerald. Born in Reno, Nevada, she plans to spend her career exploring the American West.

Shannon Sollitt

Shannon Sollitt is a bilingual journalist covering agricultural labor in Salem, Oregon for the Statesman Journal. A multimedia journalist, Sollitt’s career started in her hometown of Jackson, Wyoming, reporting breaking news, local politics, housing and economic injustice for various news outlets. Her coverage of sexual violence prompted curriculum changes in the local high school. Sollitt says that there are few things she knows with certainty: words are powerful. Even small ones carry weight. She strives to use them to tell stories that heal, that help, that hold a mirror up to the world and ask it to change. Sollitt holds a master’s in journalism from Boston University and a bachelor’s from Willamette University.

The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Oregonian is the oldest continuously operating business in the state, and among the most highly recognized news organizations in the U.S. It knows how to find important stories and how to engage readers, and since 2013, it has married its long tradition of high-impact print journalism with the dynamism of a digital-first approach to public service reporting, complete with data journalism, video storytelling and other immersive elements on OregonLive. This news organization has earned eight Pulitzer Prizes, including the Gold Medal for public service, the highest accolade in journalism.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press is a global news agency that began 172 years ago as a cooperative of five New York City newspapers. With 263 locations in more than 100 countries, AP provides journalism to roughly 15,000 media outlets around the world. AP sets standards for ethics and excellence, and 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. AP’s seven news bureaus in the northeast U.S. provide vital local and regional news to 378 newsrooms.

Statesman Journal

The Statesman Journal covers the middle section of the Willamette Valley between Oregon’s coastal mountain range and the Cascade Mountains. The Gannett-owned newsroom is based in Salem, the state capital, about an hour from Portland and the Oregon coast. Its primary mission is governmental accountability and watchdog reporting in and around Salem and state government.

Herald and News (Klamath Falls)

The Herald and News delivers breaking news and in-depth reporting about the issues affecting readers and their concerns, and has published in Klamath County, in south central Oregon, for over a century. The online publication and the paper, published four days a week, primarily cover the city of Klamath Falls and Klamath County, and report on neighboring Lake County and some nearby communities in Northern California.

The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Oregonian is the oldest continuously operating business in the state, and among the most highly recognized news organizations in the U.S. It knows how to find important stories and how to engage readers, and since 2013, it has married its long tradition of high-impact print journalism with the dynamism of a digital-first approach to public service reporting, complete with data journalism, video storytelling and other immersive elements on OregonLive. This news organization has earned eight Pulitzer Prizes, including the Gold Medal for public service, the highest accolade in journalism.