RADIO / PODCAST

John Boyle

John Boyle reports for WFPL News Louisville where he covers the local civics beat—from Census outcomes to the democratic process and elections to how local government works. The reporting provides the historical context of voting law, districting and civil rights. Boyle has spent the past year as a reporter for the News and Tribune, an Indiana publication, covering Clark and Floyd counties in the southern part of the state. In that time, he focused on the operations of local governing bodies, ranging from those of the smallest towns to the largest cities. His first tenure at the newspaper lasted from 2016 to 2017, serving as the education reporter during school board shakeups and major referenda. In between stints, Boyle took a deep dive into the world of health care as an investigative reporter at Berkeley Research Group in New York City. His interest in reporting started at Indiana University Southeast, where he wrote for a number of magazines and the student newspaper, the Horizon.

Yvonne Boose

Yvonne Boose reports for WNIJ/Northern Public Radio in DeKalb, Illinois, where she focuses on how community members are responding to the coronavirus pandemic artistically, culturally and spiritually. Boose was already at the station, where she contributed to local reporting. For 14 years, Boose worked for Verizon as a workforce supervisor but she decided to return to journalism in 2019 by producing and contributing at WNIJ. (Yvonne interned for the Beacon-News in Aurora, Illinois, in 2009 and for the Elmhurst Cable Access Channel in Elmhurst, Illinois, in 2000. Both internships helped Yvonne realize that she needed to work as a reporter.) Joining Report for America lets her become a full-time reporter focusing on local news. Yvonne is a published poet and has a master’s degree in journalism from Roosevelt University and a bachelor’s in speech communications from Chicago State University. In December of 2019, she received a diploma in radio and television broadcast from the Illinois Media School.  

Seth Bodine

Seth Bodine reports for KOSU in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he covers agriculture and rural issues on a new beat that’s aimed not only at rural Oklahomans but those in cities and suburbs who aren’t connected to farming. It’s something he knows well. Bodine covered agriculture, business and culture for KBIA, the NPR affiliate station in Columbia, Missouri. He also covered the 2020 Missouri Legislature for the Missouri Broadcasters Association and KMOX-St. Louis. Previously, he was an intern at Missouri Business Alert, Denver Business Journal and the Colorado Springs Gazette. His work has been picked up by dozens of publications, including U.S. News & World Report, The Associated Press and The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Bodine graduated with bachelor’s degrees in journalism and English creative writing from Colorado State University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Roman Battaglia

Roman Battaglia reports for Delaware Public Radio where he focuses on politics, elections and legislation activity at the local, county and state levels. He was recently a part of the Next Generation Radio Program from NPR, where he reported on immigrant experiences in Sacramento, California. After graduating from Oregon State University in June 2019, he worked at Jefferson Public Radio as part of the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism. His story covering the role that amateur radio operators play in disaster relief won the Bill Leonard Professional Media Award for Audio Reporting. During his time at Oregon State, Battaglia was the station manager for his college radio station, KBVR FM. Under his leadership, the station was named one of the top college radio stations by the College Media Association and a new podcast covering the experiences of Asian Americans on campus won the best podcast award for 2018-2019. Battaglia grew up in Portland, Ore.

Antonia Ayres-Brown

Antonia Ayres-Brown reports on race and poverty in Newport, Rhode Island for The Public’s Radio, which is based in Providence. She most recently covered state politics and government as an intern in the Chicago Tribune’s Springfield bureau. She also interned with the Toledo Blade and reported on manicurist licensing policy for Connecticut Public Radio. She earned her B.A. from Yale University, where she contributed to The New Journal, a long-form magazine about New Haven. In 2019, she was awarded Yale University’s Gordon Summer Journalism Fellowship to research gender-mixed barracks in the Norwegian Armed Forces. She has written about public policy, sexual violence and criminal justice.

Kassidy Arena

Kassidy Arena covers the Iowa statehouse for Iowa Public Radio, focusing on undercovered issues of interest to the booming Latino population. She helped cover global human rights violations and conditions during her internship at RUIDO Photo in Barcelona, Spain. She was a host, producer, and reporter for KBIA, the NPR member station in Columbia, Missouri. During the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kassidy continued to report remotely for Missouri News Network about state issues and politics. Kassidy graduated from the University of Missouri/Columbia with a degree in convergence radio reporting and producing in May 2020. She is originally from Berkeley, California but grew up in Omaha, Nebraska.

Emily Allen

As a city hall reporter for the Grand Forks Herald, Emily has spent the last year covering government and politics for communities throughout northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota. Earlier, she interned at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and American Public Media, where she helped produce APM podcasts like Brains On, a science podcast for kids. She earned her B.A. from the University of Minnesota. Covering state government and southern West Virginia Emily is based in Charleston, the state capital, where she helps cover the legislative session at the start of the year. She works primarily in audio. Outside of the legislative session, her focus is in the southern coalfields and other rural counties that have been identified as distressed by the Appalachian Regional Commission.