Tennessee

Erika Konig

Erika Konig is an immigration and human rights reporter at the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis. Before joining Report for America, Konig worked as a reporting intern at the Institute while earning her bachelor's degree on campus. Her coverage of public transportation cutbacks affecting the poor and disabled, food insecurity in Memphis, and abuses of President Trump's immigration crackdown has been republished in news sites across Tennessee. Konig also interned at WMC-TV, writing news scripts and editing videos for the evening news broadcast. A first-generation college graduate who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico as a child and became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year, Konig is enrolled in the University of Memphis' open-source investigative reporting program.

Shauna Reynolds

Shauna Reynolds is the growth and development reporter at Main Street Media of Tennessee. Before joining Report for America, Reynolds worked as a freelance reporter covering the greater Nashville area for local and national outlets. She also interned at the Nashville Banner, after graduating from Middle Tennessee State University in 2025. At MTSU, she served as features editor for Sidelines, the university’s editorially independent student newspaper. When Reynolds is not reporting, she can be found hiking in state parks, watching and feeding backyard birds, or being a homebody with her family and their standard poodles.

Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis

The Institute for Public Service Reporting is a nonprofit newsroom on the campus of the University of Memphis specializing in investigative reporting and in-depth explanatory journalism—an arm of the university with a firewall protecting their editorial independence. Its mission is to provide robust, civic-minded journalism that promotes a vibrant democracy, fosters inclusiveness and enriches the lives of the people of greater Memphis, including many underserved communities. Stories appear on its news site, and on The Daily Memphian, a nonprofit news site.

Main Street Media of Tennessee

Main Street Media, founded in 2013, publishes 16 local weekly newspapers in 14 Middle Tennessee counties along with websites, e-newsletters and social media pages. Its focus is hyperlocal coverage, including news, business, government, education, prep sports, and community features.

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.

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.

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.

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.