South

Mississippi Today

Mississippi Today is dedicated to providing Mississippians with reporting that inspires active interest in their state and equips them to engage in community life.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting

West Virginia Public Broadcasting is a public media dual licensee — it holds the sole statewide PBS and NPR licenses in West Virginia. WVPB covers West Virginia and many of the bordering counties of its five neighboring states. WVPB’s content output is primarily audio, but they also produce video for TV and digital platforms. They produce a live television show, The Legislature Today, every weekday during West Virginia’s 60-day legislative session. WVPB has a full-time staff of 52, with several part-time and paid intern positions. The mission of West Virginia Public Broadcasting is to educate, inform and inspire residents by telling West Virginia’s story. Closed Position: This Report for America corps member is based in Charleston, the state capital, and works under the mentorship of senior reporter, Dave Mistich, on the public affairs beat, including coverage of the legislative session. This reporter works primarily in audio. Outside of the legislative session, the focus is on the southern coalfields of West Virginia. This position fills a critical coverage gap for WVPB, while also contributing to government accountability reporting in the region.

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.

el Nuevo Herald

El Nuevo Herald is the second largest Spanish-language news outlet in the United States, covering local, national and international news for more than three decades, striving to be the most credible and dynamic source of news and information by producing journalism that makes a difference. El Nuevo Herald publishes in Spanish but also is routinely published in English in the Miami Herald. El Nuevo Herald shares a newsroom with the Miami Herald and they collaborate on a daily basis. Occasionally, the newspaper also collaborates with WLRN, an NPR affiliate that operates out of our newsroom. The newspaper’s coverage area extends well beyond the local community, reaching an audience of more than 357,000 in print and 3.9 million online. El Nuevo Herald’s digital readers stretch across South Florida, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Chattanooga Times Free Press

The Chattanooga Times Free Press is a daily, mid-sized paper serving Chattanooga, Tennessee, and 16 surrounding counties that spill into Georgia and Alabama. It is the only daily newspaper between the suburbs of Nashville and Atlanta, which are each two hours in different directions. The newspaper has two editorial pages, the liberal Times page and the conservative Free Press page, which honor the legacies of the papers the preceded the Times Free Press. In many ways, the two editorial pages reflect the coverage area and the nation’s rural-urban divide: Blue Chattanooga is surrounded by deep red rural communities.

Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

Founded in 2007, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) is an independent, non-profit organization promoting news and information access in Puerto Rico through investigative journalism, litigation and journalism training. The CPI is the only entity of its kind in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean dedicated to investigative journalism. Our journalists have produced hundreds of stories on issues such as political corruption, the financing of electoral campaigns, public policy issues in areas such as health, the economy, the environment, education, agriculture and crime, as well as the ways in which private groups benefit from government mismanagement. Published in both Spanish and English, CPI’s work has received more than 30 awards from professional journalism associations in Puerto Rico and abroad.

Amelia Ferrell Knisely

Amelia covers poverty in southern West Virginia for the Mountain State Spotlight. Previously she covered education and children’s issues for The Tennessean in Nashville. She has written extensively about homelessness and poverty, and she previously served as editor of The Contributor, a nonprofit newspaper sold by people experiencing homelessness. Her writing on the plight of migrant tomato farmers was nominated for an international news award. Originally from West Virginia, Amelia started her journalism career as a television reporter in her hometown. She holds a B.A. from Shepherd University in West Virginia and a master’s degree from Marshall University.  

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.