WRITING

Shirley L. Smith

Shirley L. Smith is an investigative journalist with experience covering topics ranging from the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other health care issues to criminal justice, natural disasters, education, municipal government and a myriad of social issues.  She is one of 61 reporters who was selected to cover under-covered communities and issues across the country as part of the Report for America program, a national public service program dedicated to local journalism. Prior to joining MCIR, Shirley worked as a freelance writer for several years.  She also worked as a full-time reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Virgin Islands Daily News, The Telegraph and The South Fulton Neighbor.  Her work has also been featured in numerous other publications and news sites including The Clarion-Ledger, Mississippi Today, The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, HealthQuest magazine, Spinal Column magazine, Women’s eNews and MedHelp.org. She has also taught journalism at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California. Shirley earned her master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She also had a stint as a gubernatorial speechwriter, and as a public relations executive and consultant.

Manny Ramos

Ramos is a two-time Fellow at City Bureau, a civic journalism lab based on the South Side, for which he covered the Chicago Police Department’s community-policing initiatives and worked as a public health multimedia reporter in collaboration with WBEZ’s Curious City. He also served as a journalism mentor for underserved youth via Free Spirit Media. Prior to this, Ramos reported on city politics and Chicago Public Schools for Gaper’s Block and covered municipal elections for the Daily Line. He was an editorial intern for the Chicago Reader and The Depaulia’s first podcast producer and political reporter. Reporting on Chicago's South and West Sides Ramos has joined the Chicago Sun-Times, where he will focus on Chicago’s south and west sides, including the neighborhood where he was raised.

Samantha Hogan

Samantha covered the statehouse, environment, and agriculture at The Frederick News-Post in Maryland. Her work has been recognized by the Maryland, Delaware and District of Columbia Press Association, including First Place for breaking news; First and Second Place for her pieces on growth and land use; First and Second Place for her environmental reporting. She is a former Washington Post intern, where she worked for the investigative and metro desks, and she is a graduate of American University, where she earned an M.A. in investigative reporting.

Risa Johnson

Risa is a multimedia reporter who has worked for the Chico Enterprise-Record in California. She covered local politics and the community impacts of local disasters, including the Camp Fire in November 2018 and the Oroville Dam crisis in 2017, for which she won an award from the California News Publishers Association. Her team at the Enterprise-Record was nominated for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news reporting for their coverage of the California wildfires. Born and raised in southern California, Risa earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Chico, where she was editor-in-chief of the student publication.

Rafael René Díaz Torres

Rafael has been a freelance journalist and geography professor at the University of Puerto Rico, where he specializes in the intersection of local sports, media and society. He has worked as a news and sports reporter for The Puerto Rico Daily Sun, NotiCel.com, 80 Grados and Diálogo UPR. In 2018, he joined the team of Todas PR, a feminist newspaper founded by Puerto Rican female journalists. He received his B.A. from University of Puerto Rico and two masters degrees in geography, mass media and women’s studies at Penn State, where he was president of the Puerto Rican Graduate Student Association. He is currently ABD in History and Caribbean Studies at the Center of Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. He is the editor of a multidisciplinary academic journal at the University of Puerto Rico.

Pascal Sabino

Pascal is a multimedia journalist from the south side of Chicago. He was previously the Environmental Health & Wellness Editor for the Real Chi, a west side local news lab with a mission of providing equitable, accountable news coverage for Chicago communities misrepresented by traditional media narratives. As part of his City Bureau Reporting Fellowship, Pascal reported on the impact of Section 8 vouchers on affordable housing in the Englewood neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. Before returning to his hometown, Pascal worked as an editor for international business publications in Turkey, the UAE, Oman, and Indonesia. Pascal is a 2015 graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA.

Sarah Anne Hughes

Sarah Anne Hughes has worked as an editor and reporter in Washington, DC and her home state of Pennsylvania. She began her career at The Washington Post, where she blogged about pop culture and national news. Hughes has worked as a reporter for The Incline, editor-in-chief for DCist, and managing editor of Washington City Paper. In the past year, Hughes returned to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she has been working as a freelancer. She joins The Incline / Billy Penn as their first statehouse reporter in Harrisburg. Check out her work for Billy Penn and The Incline

Obed Manuel

Until recently, Obed he was an associate editor at Central Track in Dallas, where he was focused on city news/politics and social change movements. He previously worked as managing editor of Latina Lista, where he launched a weekly podcast and wrote on immigration and technology. A graduate of the Mayborn School of Journalism at University of North Texas, Manuel was a staff writer for the North Texas Daily and a two-time intern at the Dallas Observer. In 2015, Manuel assisted former Dallas Observer editor Joe Tone with research for “Bones,” a book about money laundering through the quarter horse racing industry. A native of the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, Manuel reports on the growing population of second-generation Hispanic immigrants and the issues they face.

Natasha Rausch

Natasha was a business reporter at Bloomberg News in New York City, where she covered health care in America, industrial companies, such as General Electric, and equity and debt markets. She spent her senior year of college reporting on the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, which sold millions of cans of beer a year to the dry Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. She was a three-time national Hearst finalist for her stories there, and her class won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for their investigative reporting, beating the New Yorker and HBO. During her undergraduate education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, she also interned for the Oregonian, USA TODAY, the Omaha World-Herald and the Norfolk Daily News.

Michelle Liu

Michelle was a reporting intern for the Toledo Blade, and a general assignment intern for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. As a reporter for the Yale Daily News and a contributing reporter for the New Haven Independent, she shadowed canvassers in New Hampshire and covered labor unions in Connecticut. She was also a program coordinator for Yale’s Summer Journalism Program for high school students. Since joining Report for America, Liu has covered criminal justice for Mississippi Today. The Institute for Non-Profit News named Michelle’s reporting on the spike of prison deaths in Mississippi as one of the “Best in Nonprofit News” in 2018. Her continued reporting on this and other stories not only helped lead the MDOC to invite the FBI to get involved in the investigation of these deaths, but her dogged records requests were cited by the Department of Corrections while asking the Legislature to exempt agencies from parts of the Public Records Act. More recently, the Mississippi Humanities Council invited Michelle to moderate a panel titled, “Locked Up: Criminal Justice in Mississippi.” She continues this work in her second year with Report for America.