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Akron Beacon Journal

The Akron Beacon Journal provides comprehensive news coverage primarily for Summit and Stark counties in post-industrial Northeast Ohio. We frequently publish deep-dive enterprise reports on a wide variety of topics. These newsroom also leads the joint news efforts of GateHouse Media in Northeast Ohio, which includes numerous other daily media sites and weekly publications. Overall, GateHouse serves 10 counties in Northeast Ohio and a population of 1.2 million residents. We also work closely with GateHouse’s Columbus Dispatch for Statehouse and regional news coverage.

Abbey Marshall

Abbey Marshall covers Akron city government for the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio.  Marshall is a 2020 graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, where she studied on a full academic scholarship awarded to a student pursuing a career in reporting. Throughout her collegiate career, she completed two internships at The Columbus Dispatch as a metro reporter and web producer. She recently returned from Washington, D.C., where she covered breaking news as an intern at Politico. Having worked at a nonprofit in Mumbai, studied French and media in Aix-en-Provence and covered politics in the nation’s capital, she ultimately realized she missed the state she calls home and the fight for solid local journalism.

Traverse City Record-Eagle

The Traverse City Record-Eagle is northern Michigan's largest news outlet, operating print and digital publications, including a daily print edition, a quarterly magazine and two podcasts. The Record-Eagle has a strong history of strong watchdog reporting complemented by artful narrative writing. Our newsroom is situated in downtown Traverse City, but serves a five-county core coverage area as well as broad, growing sections of news desert in northern Michigan.  

Luca Powell

Luca Powell is an investigative data journalist reporting for the Traverse City Record-Eagle. Luca has been working in New York City throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, reporting on the inequities impacting patients living with such co-morbidities as sickle cell disease. His coverage of the sacrifices of Filipino frontline nurses was featured on the cover of the New York Times’ metro section in January 2021. Most recently, Luca’s work on police misconduct was featured at WNYC and in The Intercept, where he exposed loopholes in New York’s decertification system, which allowed for problem officers to be rehired in new jobs. He is a 2020 Overseas Press Club Foundation Scholar and a graduate of CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

Bennito Kelty

Bennito Kelty covers the IDEA beat, taking a close look at inclusivity, diversity, equity and access for the Tucson Sentinel, a nonprofit news site in Tucson, Arizona. Before this, he worked for the Yuma Sun in Yuma, Arizona reporting on the Arizona-Mexico border and county government. Kelty calls Aurora, Colorado home and its diverse immigrant community led him to become interested in understanding cultures from around the world that exist in America and how these groups of people live together. That interest, plus growing up in a Mexican American home, influenced his love of languages, including his own native Spanish and English. Kelty started reporting as a journalism student at the University of Missouri, where he won recognition from the Missouri Press Association for a story in the Missourian, the school’s community paper. Kelty has also won an award with The St. Louis American for breaking news coverage.

Breanna Reeves

Breanna Reeves is a journalist for Black Voice News, a website and weekly paper in Riverside, California, and uses data-driven reporting to cover issues that affect the lives of Black Californians. Before joining Black Voice News, Reeves earned a master's degree in politics and communication from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she wrote for the London Globalist, the student-run international affairs publication. She has worked as a freelancer, covering activism and shining light on social inequality in San Francisco and Los Angeles, her hometown. Reeves honed her reporting skills while covering homelessness, social activism and inequality for the Golden Gate Xpress, the student-run newspaper at San Francisco State University. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in print and online journalism with a minor in international relations.

Celia Hack

Celia Hack reports on local government for The Wichita Beacon, a nonprofit news site in Wichita, Kansas. Prior to this, she interned for EcoRI News in Providence, Rhode Island, covering local government and environmental issues. Hack earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 2021, where she worked as a reporter and section editor for The Brown Daily Herald. Her outstanding accomplishments earned her a second place award from the university honoring excellence in journalism. Hack is from Westwood, Kansas and has covered local government, criminal justice and education as a freelancer for the Shawnee Mission Post and for The Journal, a publication of the Kansas Leadership Center, a nonprofit in Wichita. As a research assistant, Hack has worked for Global Energy Monitor, a nonprofit collecting data on worldwide fossil fuel projects, and for the Climate and Development Lab, a think tank researching climate policy and politics.

Emily Wolf

Emily Wolf reports for The Kansas City Beacon, a nonprofit digital news outlet based in Kansas City, Missouri. Wolf is a local government accountability reporter with a focus on telling meaningful stories through data. Before joining The Beacon, she worked as an editorial associate for Investigative Reporters & Editors. Wolf grew up in Round Rock, Texas, and while pursuing her bachelor's at the University of Missouri School of Journalism she covered state government for two years for the Columbia Missourian, the school's community paper. In 2020 Wolf was a Dow Jones News Fund data intern and received an award from the Missouri Press Association for her reporting on child care legislation. She was a 2019 finalist for a student IRE award.

Hannah Critchfield

Hannah Critchfield covers issues affecting people 65 and over for the Tampa Bay Times. A second-year corps member, she previously reported on conditions inside prisons and jails during the pandemic and gender-based health disparities for North Carolina Health News. Critchfield's investigation into the state's underreporting of incarcerated people who died of COVID-19 changed state prison policy. She has worked for the Phoenix New Times, covering immigration and criminal justice, and her reporting has also appeared in The New York Times, VICE, The Intercept, and PBS. Critchfield, from Normal, Illinois, holds a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she focused on workplace abuse within undocumented communities and received the Melvin Mencher Award for superior reporting. Her investigation into the rehiring of university faculty accused of sexual harassment in 2019 earned her the Fred M. Hechinger Award for Education Journalism.

Ian Karbal

Ian Karbal reports on state politics for Mountain State Spotlight, an investigative and enterprise news site based in Charleston, West Virginia. Before joining the Spotlight, Karbal was a Delacorte Magazine fellow at the Columbia Journalism Review, covering mis/disinformation and the media industry. He holds a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he specialized in investigative reporting in the Toni Stabile Center program. His work has also appeared in The Trace, OpenSecrets, and the Gateway Journalism Review. Karbal, from Chicago, began his career reporting on local government for the Pinckneyville Press in Illinois. His investigative work uncovering biased and for-profit policing practices earned him a Freedom of Information Award from the National Newspaper Association, and made him a finalist for the 2018 Chicago Headline Club's Peter Lisagor Awards.