Washington

Daniel Walters

Daniel Walters covers the far right, the radical left and the beleaguered democratic institutions caught in the middle for InvestigateWest, an investigative nonprofit in the Pacific Northwest. He previously spent 15 years as a reporter for the Inlander, the alt-weekly in Spokane, Washington, where he’s covered a slew of different beats, including city hall, politics, religion, business, and education. In that role, he won first-place national alt-weekly awards for extremism reporting with his 2020 cover story about the rise of vigilantism; for immigration reporting with his harrowing account of an Afghan's failed attempt to escape his country after it fell to the Taliban; for education reporting with his exposé of Idaho's failure to send its high school graduates to college; and for food writing for his deeply reported explanation of exactly why amateur chefs shouldn’t set their laptop on a hot stove burner. Before that, he was a student at Whitworth University, where, as opinions editor for his college paper, he banned his writers from using semicolons.

InvestigateWest

InvestigateWest is a nonprofit news organization founded in 2009 that is dedicated to change-making investigative journalism for the Pacific Northwest. The Northwest-based newsroom covers a range of topics including the environment and climate change, health inequities, social justice, voting rights and government accountability. Our reporting appears on our website and is regularly republished by 15 news outlets across Washington, Oregon and Idaho. We also frequently partner with national publications including The Washington Post, The Atlantic and The Guardian.

James Hanlon

James Hanlon reports for The Spokesman-Review, based in Spokane, Washington, covering rural counties in eastern Washington and the Idaho Panhandle. Previously, Hanlon reported for The Oxford Leader in Oxford, Michigan. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska and Snowflake, Arizona, and he holds bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and film and media studies from Arizona State University. After college, Hanlon spent three years living in a Japanese village of 700 people, teaching English and writing about revitalization projects in the countryside for a local nonprofit. His work has also appeared in Kyoto Journal, Tokyo Cheapo and Asia Matters for America by the East-West Center.

Jasper Sundeen

Jasper Kenzo Sundeen covers education and economics in the Latino community for the Yakima Herald-Republic in Yakima, Washington. Before moving to central Washington, Sundeen was an editor, writer and eventually, editor-in-chief of The Daily Californian, the student-run paper at the University of California, Berkeley and the paper of record for the Berkeley community. He has also worked as a student journalist at Dash Sports TV. Sundeen holds a bachelor’s degree in political economy and geography, and hails from Los Angeles, where he grew up playing soccer.

Mallory Gruben

Mallory Gruben reports on K-12 education in Snohomish County for The Daily Herald in Everett, Washington. Previously, she freelanced on the north and central Oregon coast, reporting primarily for the Newport News-Times and The Astorian. She started her journalism career at The Daily News in Longview, Washington, where she covered education, business and the environment. Her work has won awards from the Northwest Society of Professional Journalists. A graduate of Hastings College in Nebraska, she was editor-in-chief of the student paper and helped to save the paper from being eliminated by budget cuts. Gruben grew up in Eckley, a village of about 230 people in the northeastern part of Colorado.

Santiago Ochoa

Santiago Ochoa is a bilingual journalist covering health care access at the Yakima Herald-Republic in Yakima, Washington. Before joining the Herald, Ochoa reported for Flint Beat in Flint, Michigan, covering the city’s Latino population—health care, education, community building and more, and winning top honors in the Michigan Press Association’s feature category. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan-Flint, where he was editor-in-chief of the school’s paper, The Michigan Times. When he’s not working, Ochoa enjoys cross-country trips on his motorcycle, going to the movies, reading and skiing.

Yakima Herald-Republic

The Yakima Herald-Republic, a daily paper and news site, is the largest media outlet in the Yakima Valley, and dedicated to serving central Washington with breaking news and in-depth coverage. El Sol de Yakima, a Spanish-language website and weekly paper, is part of the Herald-Republic newsroom, and the two publications cross-publish stories. Yakima Magazine, a monthly, is also part of this news organization.

Yakima Herald-Republic

The Yakima Herald-Republic, a daily paper and news site, is the largest media outlet in the Yakima Valley, and dedicated to serving central Washington with breaking news and in-depth coverage. El Sol de Yakima, a Spanish-language website and weekly paper, is part of the Herald-Republic newsroom, and the two publications cross-publish stories. Yakima Magazine, a monthly, is also part of this news organization.

The Daily Herald (Everett, Wa.)

For more than a century, The Daily Herald has been the leading news source in Snohomish County, home to 18 cities and over 800,000 residents. This news organization's fundamental philosophy, first stated in 1901, is simple: “There is in this community no one so poor or insignificant that The Herald will not defend him if he be wronged, no one so high and powerful that the Herald will not fearlessly attack him if he seek to do injustice.”

The Spokesman-Review

For nearly 140 years, The Spokesman-Review has been a leading voice of the inland Northwest, a region centered in Spokane and home to more than 730,000 people in eastern Washington and north Idaho. The region's largest daily and family-owned, it delivers accurate and balanced news reports, data, analyses and commentaries. While its primary focus is Spokane County, this news organization also reports on surrounding rural counties and the five counties of the north Idaho Panhandle.