MULTIMEDIA

Brittany Brown

Brittany Brown covers workers and labor in Memphis, Tennessee for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, which reports on policy, poverty and power in Memphis and Shelby County. Prior to joining MLK50, Brown reported on the criminal justice system in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana for the Gulf States Newsroom, NPR’s southern news hub. She was the inaugural Emerging Reporters Fellow at Mississippi Today, where she covered the state’s criminal legal system through the lens of justice and equity. Brown’s journalism career began in student media at the University of Mississippi, where she worked as a reporter and editor for the student newspaper, tv station and yearbook. In college she worked as a breaking news intern with The Baltimore Sun and was a reporting fellow with Carnegie-Knight News21 at Arizona State University, where she reported on hate crimes in America. Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and is currently completing her master’s documentary thesis project in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi.

Jeffrey Ruiz

Jeffrey Ruiz covers disinvested neighborhoods in search of solutions for the city's systemic inequalities in Dallas, Texas for Dallas Free Press. While an undergraduate at the University of North Texas, Ruiz was a special contributor for The Dallas Morning News and reported on a city redevelopment project in McKinney, Texas that cleared an entire mobile home community. His bilingual skills in Spanish played a major role in this investigative piece. Ruiz enrolled in a practicum with The North Texas Daily as a news reporter covering social issues at the local and county level, based on initiatives and programs declared by the city council and the administration of UNT. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism with a concentration in digital and print media. Whenever he isn’t reporting, Ruiz spends his time serving the community through his local church.

Kierra Sam

Kierra Sam is a political reporter for the Houston Defender Network, covering issues of environmental racism, criminal justice, voter suppression and more. A Texas native with a passion for storytelling and keeping communities informed about the world around them, Kierra attended the University of Houston and received her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism and a minor in Spanish. While at the university, she worked on several video projects with different departments and also interned at KPRC Channel 2 News in Houston. Kierra started her professional journalism career as a digital MSJ at an NBC/ABC news affiliate television station in Beaumont, Texas. She has reported on stories covering hurricanes, plant explosions, criminal investigations, as well as profile pieces. Outside of news, Kierra likes to go to music festivals, take road trips and explore new places with family and friends.

Shannon Sollitt

Shannon Sollitt is a bilingual journalist covering agricultural labor in Salem, Oregon for the Statesman Journal. A multimedia journalist, Sollitt’s career started in her hometown of Jackson, Wyoming, reporting breaking news, local politics, housing and economic injustice for various news outlets. Her coverage of sexual violence prompted curriculum changes in the local high school. Sollitt says that there are few things she knows with certainty: words are powerful. Even small ones carry weight. She strives to use them to tell stories that heal, that help, that hold a mirror up to the world and ask it to change. Sollitt holds a master’s in journalism from Boston University and a bachelor’s from Willamette University.

Teresa Homsi

Teresa Homsi is an environmental reporter in northern Michigan for WCMU public radio, which is based in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Homsi covers rural environmental issues, and their intersection with public health and Michigan commerce. Holding a bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University in environmental studies, journalism and anthropology, she was a beat reporter for Central Michigan Life, the student paper, and interned for the Huron Daily Tribune and for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy’s superfund program. Homsi helped start her university’s sustainability office, and implemented projects, policy and programming. Her work has gained national and international recognition from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

Ashley Miznazi

Ashley Miznazi covers the Haitian community in the South Florida/Miami area for The Haitian Times, a news organization based in Brooklyn, New York. Previously, Miznazi was a multimedia fellow for The Texas Tribune, where she created short documentaries on Afghan resettlement and the foster care system. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, Miznazi worked in the photo and video departments at the student paper, The Daily Texan. She is the host of “Darkness,” a podcast about the 2018 Austin bombings.

Jennifer Whidden

Jenny Whidden reports on the effects of climate change on Chicago’s suburbs for the Daily Herald, based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. A second-year Report for America corps member, Whidden previously was a Statehouse reporter for New Hampshire’s Granite State News Collaborative, covering legislation related to racial justice. A native of Rolling Meadows, Illinois, Whidden holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Marquette University. There, she was managing editor of the student paper, the Marquette Tribune, which won top honors in General Excellence from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Whidden enjoys going to the movies, reading fiction and spending time with Princeton, her cat.

Jorge Garcia

Jorge Garcia is a bilingual multimedia journalist for the Visalia Times-Delta in Visalia, California. He hails from Los Angeles, and his passion for storytelling and amplifying the voices of disenfranchised communities are several reasons why he pursued a journalism career. A graduate of California State University, Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, Garcia has produced video, audio, text, and photojournalism work for various news outlets, including the University Times, Cal State’s student paper, and KQBH radio, and as an intern for EdSource and the Los Angeles Times. He enjoys playing soccer and collecting vintage vinyl records.

Kayla Benjamin

Kayla Benjamin is a journalist at The Washington Informer, a multimedia news organization in the metro Washington, D.C. area. Prior to this, she was an assistant editor at Washingtonian magazine, and reported on the arts, travel, real estate and politics. As an intern with Current, a national trade publication covering the public media industry, Benjamin wrote a feature story about public radio stations’ climate coverage initiatives, which was included in the Pew Research Center’s newsletter on media and on Mediagazer’s Twitter. Benjamin, a graduate of American University, is passionate about solutions journalism, environmental policy and dark chocolate.

Lindiwe Vilakazi

Lindiwe Vilakazi reports for The Washington Informer, a multimedia news organization serving African Americans in the metro Washington, D.C. area. Previously, she was a contributing editor at Acumen Magazine, a Washington-based publication featuring investigative stories that examine eugenics, African-American history, social movements and popular culture. Vilakazi says that she is an investigative journalist whose work highlights the lives and stories of those groups of people who often go unnoticed in the mainstream news. Her freelance work has appeared in several digital and print publications.