Utah

Bethany Baker

Bethany Baker is a journalist at The Salt Lake Tribune, a nonprofit newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a documentarian creating videos, photos and multimedia content, she covers water-management issues involving the Colorado River, the Great Salt Lake and related resources, as well as issues within the region's Indigenous communities and other topics impacting Salt Lake City and Utah. Before this, Baker worked on her master’s degree in journalism at Harvard Extension School, and she was a photojournalist at daily papers throughout the West. Originally from the Chicagoland area, Baker studied French in high school, and is developing her Spanish fluency. An avid outdoors enthusiast, she loves backpacking, rafting, rock climbing and snowboarding, and has two dogs and a quarter horse gelding.

Leto Sapunar

Leto Sapunar is a business and tech reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune, a nonprofit newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah. Previously, he freelanced for Popular Science, Scientific American, Inverse and Retraction Watch, among other outlets, covering physics, space and science accountability. Sapunar’s work resulted in the retraction of numerous flawed scientific papers and caused a senior faculty member accused of misconduct to step down from his chair position. During Sapunar’s studies, he was a fellow with Inside Climate News and an intern with Retraction Watch and Alpinist Magazine. He earned his master’s in science journalism from New York University and his bachelor’s in physics from Oregon State University. An avid rock climber, Sapunar says that he speaks French and just enough Russian to be offensive. As a former science camp teacher, he’s always happy to look through a telescope and answer questions about space.

The Salt Lake Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune became a nonprofit in late 2019, and the news organization is now owned by the community and under the stewardship of a board. In 2020, The Tribune established its mission statement, built its board and launched its supporting subscribers programs. The mission: The Tribune is Utah’s independent voice. Building on a legacy of courageous, watchdog journalism, this news organization strives to tell stories that are interesting, important and inclusive. Dedicated to fairness and accuracy, it aims to engage and empower readers.

The Salt Lake Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune became a nonprofit in late 2019, and the news organization is now owned by the community and under the stewardship of a board. In 2020, The Tribune established its mission statement, built its board and launched its supporting subscribers programs. The mission: The Tribune is Utah’s independent voice. Building on a legacy of courageous, watchdog journalism, this news organization strives to tell stories that are interesting, important and inclusive. Dedicated to fairness and accuracy, it aims to engage and empower readers.

Alixel Cabrera

Alixel Cabrera covers government accountability in West Valley City for The Salt Lake Tribune, a nonprofit newspaper in Salt Lake City, Utah. Cabrera is a Venezuelan journalist who has reported on the economy, energy, food and culture for newspapers and websites in Venezuela and the U.S., including The Salt Lake Tribune and Rest of World, an international nonprofit journalism organization. She has also reported for La Verdad and Cronica Uno, where she covered Maracaibo, her hometown and one of the cities most affected by blackouts and food shortages in Venezuela. Cabrera earned her master's degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2020. She was a Maria Moors Cabot scholar and the recipient of a Jack R. Howard fellowship in international journalism.

The Salt Lake Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune was founded as an alternative voice in 1871. From air quality to cultural trends to analysis of the Utah Jazz, the news organization’s goal is to inform, enlighten and empower Utahns with news they can trust. The Salt Lake Tribune is Utah’s leader in accountability journalism and investigative reporting, consistently pushing for access, open records and transparency through requests, appeals, legislation and, when necessary, litigation.  

Lexi Peery

Lexi Peery is a reporter for KUER/NPR Utah where she focuses on issues about fast-growing Washington County. Peery is a Salt Lake City native who has been in Southern Utah the past year reporting on all things related to the environment, development and government for The Spectrum & Daily News. She returned to Utah after graduating from Boston University, majoring in journalism and concentrating in environmental studies while earning the Blue Chip Award. During her senior year she was an environmental and newsroom fellow at WBUR, Boston’s NPR station. That same year she also interned for the national call-in show, “On Point.” While at BU, she worked her way up to editor-in-chief of the independent student newspaper, The Daily Free Press. She also was a correspondent at The Boston Globe and did freelance reporting for City Journals in the Salt Lake Valley.

Sophia Eppolito

Sophia Eppolito covers the Utah Legislature for The Associated Press where she concentrates on the intersection of religion and state government. As a news associate for The AP in New York City, she wrote about crime and community news on the East Coast. Previously, she worked at The Boston Globe for two years covering general assignment stories and breaking news. She also worked as a Massachusetts Statehouse Correspondent for the Lowell Sun where she reported on the rollout of recreational marijuana and climate change. A Los Angeles native, she attended Boston University where she received the Blue Chip Award, the highest student honor conferred by the BU College of Communication.

Joan Meiners

Joan Meiners reports for The Spectrum in St. George, Utah, and focuses on the consequences of growth in Cedar City. Meiners has a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Florida, where she published multiple peer-reviewed scientific articles. As a journalist, she has written about the environment for Smithsonian Magazine, Discover Magazine, Orion Magazine and New Scientist Magazine. She spent 2019 as a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network investigating pollution from the oil and gas industry in southeast Louisiana for the ‘Polluter’s Paradise’ series, which won the Bayou Brief award for Louisiana’s Best Environment Reporting of 2019. The previous year, she got her start doing newspaper writing as an American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) fellow at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. Before that, she produced data journalism for the award-winning series, ‘Peak Florida’ while still a graduate student.

K. Sophie Will

K. Sophie Will reports for The Spectrum in St. George, Utah, where she focuses on the major national parks in the area—Bryce Canyon, Zion, and the Grand Canyon—and the consequences of growth and tourism. Being in Utah marks a return for Will, who grew up in Draper, Utah. She is an investigative data journalist who has covered everything from local government to major human rights violations at investigative multimedia internships with NBC 10 Boston, HuffPost, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting/WGBH and The Deseret News. She has also covered daily metro news at the Boston Globe as well as climate change and women’s rights at the Thomson Reuters Foundation in London. At Boston University, where she graduated with her bachelor’s in journalism in May 2020, she was the managing editor and the pioneering in-depth and data editor at the BU News Service.