WRITING

Áine Pennello

Prior to joining Connecticut Public, Áine Pennello was a reporter and Morning Edition newscaster at WUFT in North Central Florida. She has a background in video journalism and documentary filmmaking, producing films and series for Soledad O’Brien Productions, Netflix, HBO Films and more. She is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Jake Kincaid

Jake Kincaid is an investigative reporter at inewsource covering the impact of federal policy in San Diego. Before moving to San Diego, he reported from across the U.S. and Latin America covering misconduct by prosecutors in Ohio that left innocent people in jail for decades, abuse of political prisoners in Nicaragua, the impact of U.S foreign policy on the Colombian peace process and the failure of the coroner system in the U.S to accurately count COVID-19 deaths in rural areas. His reporting won National Headliner awards and he was an Overseas Press Club fellow with Reuters in Mexico City. His work has appeared in National Public Radio, The Guardian, USA Today, The Miami Herald and Univision. He holds a master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School in the Toni Stabile Investigative program and was an investigative reporter at Columbia Journalism Investigations. Jake speaks fluent Spanish. In his free time, he enjoys rock climbing, surfing and salsa dancing.

Molly Bohannon

Prior to joining the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, Bohannon worked as a breaking news reporter for Forbes and covered local government and education for the Fort Collins Coloradoan. She earned a master's degree in investigative reporting from Arizona State University, where she worked on an investigation into COVID-19's impact on America’s homeless population that was supported by the Pulitzer Center. That project won multiple awards, including first place in student reporting from the Association of Health Care Journalists Awards and best news story in the EPPY Awards. She is also a graduate of Creighton University, where she studied journalism and was editor-in-chief of the school’s student newspaper, the Creightonian.

Hali Mecklin

Before joining the Uvalde Leader-News as a Report for America corps member, Mecklin covered arts, culture and local news for Los Angeles Magazine. She also served as managing editor at Annenberg Media, the University of Southern California’s digital news outlet, and reported on LAPD’s response to pro-Palestinian encampment protests and the subsequent cancellation of main-stage commencement. During her time at Annenberg Media, she won best student arts or entertainment news story at the 2024 LA Press Club National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards for her reporting on the Syrian antiquity trade in Los Angeles. Before starting at USC, she began her career in journalism at 16 as an intern with the Santa Barbara Independent. During COVID-19 she took a break from reporting to work at the zoo as a giraffe experience specialist, where she helped guests feed and learn about endangered Masai giraffes. She loves Vietnamese food, abstract expressionist painting and her pet pug.

Alejandra Molina

Alejandra Molina is a senior reporter and youth mentor at Boyle Heights Beat. Prior to joining the Beat, Molina was part of the team that launched De Los, a new section of the Los Angeles Times exploring Latinidad in L.A. and across the country. Before that, she was a national reporter for the independent and nonprofit Religion News Service as part of a global religion journalism initiative with the Associated Press and the Conversation. There, she covered Latinos and spirituality. As a staff writer, you can also find her bylines in newsrooms under the Southern California News Group, where she covered city, immigration and breaking news beats. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Eater, LAist, and the Washington Post. She grew up in the L.A. region, including El Monte and Pomona.

Alex Cox

Alex Cox is a graduate from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. They worked at a variety of newsrooms in the Missouri News Network, with their primary newsroom being KBIA, the NPR affiliate for Mid-Missouri. In their many jobs, they've wore many hats, but their favorite type of reporting is working with audio and data. They believe in trying to take themselves out of the story as much as possible to let their sources tell the story.

Jaylin R. Smith

Making funny videos and engaging audiences for prospects were skills Jaylin Smith learned from her graduate experience at the University of Mississippi in Journalism and New Media. While receiving her Master’s degree, the scholar worked as a graduate assistant for the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics. There, Smith started her career as a multimedia journalist and researcher, presenting her work at conferences for the Broadcast Education Association and the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Her love for diversity and passion for representation and visibility of Black culture allowed her to be chosen as a 2024 TEDx Speaker, giving a talk about the importance of respecting Black women’s hair. Smith’s strong foundation for journalistic excellence and community involvement began at her beloved HBCU, Mississippi Valley State University. Leading up to her role as the Delta reporter at the Mississippi Free Press, Smith worked as a car saleswoman at Cannon Chevrolet in her hometown of Greenwood, Miss.

Molly Wetsch

Molly Wetsch covers Indigenous and rural communities in South Dakota for South Dakota News Watch. Before joining News Watch, Wetsch was an editorial intern for Forbes, working on the Contributor Network contributing to breaking news and the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. She began her journalism career in high school, where she wrote a monthly column and covered local business news for Sioux Falls. Business. She holds a bachelor's degree in global business from Trinity College, Dublin and served as deputy editor of the University Times, the student newspaper and deputy editor of the Trinity Business Review. Though Wetsch lived abroad for four years, she's a proud South Dakota native and passionate about Indigenous and rural communities.

Io Yeh Gilman

Before joining Mission Local as an RFA corp member, Io Yeh Gilman interned there in 2024, covering Pride, crime, homelessness, animals, and more. Born and raised in San Francisco, she previously reported on the city while working at The Lowell, her high school’s newspaper. In college, Gilman led Fifteen Minutes, The Harvard Crimson’s weekly magazine. She edited features and long form stories and wrote about a variety of topics including right wing attacks on DEI programs, climate change, science research, and more. Gilman holds a bachelor’s degree in History and Science from Harvard University and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Alex Klaus

Alex Klaus is a graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit with a degree in urban studies and public history. In 2024, she covered education with a focus on literacy intervention efforts in the Detroit Public Schools Community District as an intern at Chalkbeat Detroit. She covered over 80 public meetings as a Detroit Documenter and served as a mentor in the network's "Docu-Mentors" program, building a video library of tutorials equipping other Documenters with a variety of tools to confidently cover meetings. As a freelancer for Outlier Media, she pitched a solutions-oriented policing and public safety newsletter in 2022 that became Streetlight Detroit. When she's not covering a public meeting, she's exploring nature preserves, cooking, baking, or hanging out with friends and her cat Dottie.