Tennessee

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism is an award-winning nonprofit digital newsroom, and focused on the intersection of poverty, power and policy. Its vision echoes Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream: a nation where all residents, especially workers, have enough resources to thrive, and where public and private policy supports their success.

Jorgelina Manna-Rea

Jorgelina Manna-Rea is an environmental reporter for the Kingsport Times News. Before joining the team in Kingsport, she was a producer at NPR and WAMU's live talk show 1A. There, she produced a variety of conversations ranging from how communities recover from disasters to what it means to love. She also produced and reported at NPR and WBUR’s "Here & Now" and NPR member station WUSF, respectively. While studying at the University of South Florida, she was a staff writer and assistant news editor at The Oracle, the student-run newspaper.

Lillian Avedian

Lillian Avedian covers education for the Nashville Banner. She is a former assistant editor and staff writer at the Armenian Weekly, where she reported on international politics, women’s rights, and diasporic identity. Her writing and reporting on the Middle East, North Africa, Russia, and the Caucasus has been published in Democracy in Exile, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Hetq, and Girls on Key Press, among other outlets. She has traveled to Morocco to report on the rise of women DJs and LGBTQ rights and to Armenia to cover the regional conflict and displacement crisis. Avedian holds master’s degrees in journalism and Near Eastern studies from New York University and bachelor’s degrees in peace and conflict studies and Slavic studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a published poet with a deep love for Armenian feminist poetry.

Jules Feeney

Jules Feeney covers growth and the local impacts of the Trump administration for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Before moving to Tennessee, Feeney investigated a North Carolina hospital system for the Guardian US as a freelance reporter and covered climate change and solutions for the Guardian's West Coast news desk as an editorial intern. While receiving a master's degree in journalism from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Feeney reported on education, religion, and campus protests. Before becoming a reporter, Feeney worked as a deckhand on a commercial fishing boat in Bristol Bay, Alaska. He has an undergraduate degree in religion from Colorado College.

Kevin Lee Wurm

Prior to joining MLK50 as a visual storyteller, Kevin Wurm worked as a Tennessee-based freelance photographer who weaves portraiture, journalism, and documentary storytelling to elevate overlooked stories and the people who tell them. Wurm's images are guided by empathy and purpose, capturing moments that reveal deeper truths. Self-taught and driven by a strong desire to grow, his journey has led to work featured in Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more.

Chattanooga Times Free Press

The Times Free Press is a for-profit newspaper that has served its community for more than a century and a half, since 1869 when the Chattanooga Daily Times was created. The paper serves readers in Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia with the mission of building community connections and providing fact-based journalism that informs and empowers our readers.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism is an award-winning nonprofit digital newsroom, and focused on the intersection of poverty, power and policy. Its vision echoes Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream: a nation where all residents, especially workers, have enough resources to thrive, and where public and private policy supports their success.

Kingsport Times News

The Kingsport Times News serves readers in Eastern Tennessee and Southwest Virginia with comprehensive local coverage, from breaking news to community events. Committed to journalistic integrity, it delivers the stories that matter most to its readers. As part of a family-owned group of five regional newspapers, the Times News collaborates with its sister publications to provide shared content across print and digital platforms, ensuring timely and reliable news for the communities it proudly serves.

Nashville Banner

The new Nashville Banner is a locally owned, community-supported nonprofit news organization that exists as a direct response to the decline of public service journalism in Tennessee. We’re on a mission to tell people something they didn’t already know, and to help them understand what’s at stake for the present and future of our ever-changing city. We deliver daily news that inspires our neighbors to act with agency.

F. Amanda Tugade

F. Amanda Tugade reports for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, which is based in Memphis, Tennessee. She focuses on poverty, power and public policy in Memphis and Shelby County. Previously, Tugade has covered Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. She has primarily worked as a reporter for local media outlets, including Shaw Media, the former 22nd Century Media and the Chicago Tribune/Pioneer Press newspapers. Her stories have also been featured in the Chicago Reader, Chicago Magazine, the Chicago Defender. She has won awards from the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association and the Illinois Press Association for her in-depth profiles of community leaders. Recently, Tugade was named a 2019 Peter Lisagor Award finalist. She’s a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.