RADIO / PODCAST

Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is an award-winning investigative news outlet based in Madison, Wisconsin. The mission of the WCIJ is to increase the quality, quantity and understanding of investigative journalism to foster an informed citizenry and strengthen democracy. The organization collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, commercial media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, training students in classroom settings. Collaborative partners have included ProPublica, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Center for Public Integrity, Reveal, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, Madison Magazine, HuffPost and other outlets.

Rachel Cohen

Rachel worked as an editorial intern at New Hampshire Public Radio, where she produced local stories for broadcast on All Things Considered, and on NPR’s Science Desk, where she reported on food and health. In the last year, she also conducted pre-production research on immigration for the award-winning documentary team, Living on One. She also worked as a volunteer at the Open Door Clinic, which provided migrant farm workers and others with free healthcare. Rachel began her journalism career at the Addison County Independent in Vermont. She’s a graduate of Middlebury College.

Paul Braun

Paul Braun reports for WRKF and WWNO, the NPR member stations in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where he covers the Louisiana Legislature. His coverage of Louisiana politics and policy as the interim capital access reporter for the stations has aired on national programs, including All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Here & Now. Braun continues reporting in the same capacity as a Report for America corps member. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication, where he covered the Louisiana Legislature and the criminal justice system as a member of the Manship School News Service. Braun joined WRKF as an intern in February 2019 and took over as the station’s full-time political reporter six weeks before Louisiana’s gubernatorial primary. He previously worked as an intern at The News Journal in Wilmington, Delaware, and as a contributing writer and radio reporter for The Daily Reveille, LSU’s student-run newspaper.

Laura Brache

Laura Brache reports for WFAE/La Noticia, a joint project of the Charlotte, North Carolina, NPR affiliate and the largest Spanish language newspaper in North Carolina. She focuses on immigration and deportation issues affecting the area’s booming Hispanic population and engulfing local governments and police. Brache is part of the team at WFMY News in Greensboro, North Carolina that won the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for social media for its coverage of storm damage from a series of tornados. She is a multilingual multimedia journalist from North Carolina who was born in Massachusetts and raised in the Dominican Republic. Most recently she worked as a Production Coordinator at her alma mater, the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media assisting in the production of special student projects. Her journey in broadcasting began at WFMY News 2 in Greensboro, where she covered breaking news, severe weather and everything in between. Brache is a member of the July 2019 cohort of the Syracuse University online Master of Science program specializing in journalism innovation. She expects to complete the program by the end of 2020.

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.