WRITING

Sydney Salomon

Sydney Salomon is a housing and community affairs reporter covering homelessness, housing affordability, and local policy. She previously reported for New Mexico In Depth, where she produced a feature on LGBTQ+ youth homelessness that was republished as a cover story by the Santa Fe Reporter and reached the New Mexico Statehouse. She also worked as a reporter for NYU’s graduate publication, The Click, covering housing and education issues across Union County. Salomon holds a master’s degree in journalism from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Saint Elizabeth University, where she graduated cum laude. In addition to reporting, she is an independent poet and the author of 7 books. She has received awards for two of her poems, separate from her published book work, The Lunchroom (2023) and The Ballads of Tragedy: America’s School Shooting Saga (2024). A New Jersey native, she enjoys creative writing and community-focused storytelling.

Adriana Gutierrez

Prior to joining Mission Local, Adriana Gutierrez spent three years at The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California as an education and child welfare reporter through the Report For America reporting program. During her time there, she covered 40 school districts across Sonoma County, paying close attention to the fiscal crisis of the county's largest school district, Santa Rosa City Schools. She won awards from the California News Publisher Association and California Journalism Awards for her coverage of violence on school campuses and student homelessness in Sonoma County. Gutierrez graduated from Oregon State University in 2023, where she served as the dditor-in-chief of the university's newspaper, The Daily Barometer. She also interned at The Oregonian in 2022. During her internship, she covered the business section of the metro paper, while also serving on the breaking news, education and weather desks.

Anita Li

Anita Li is the government accountability reporter at Coconut Grove Spotlight. Through Report for America, she previously covered education for the Prince William Times, where she won a Virginia Press Association award for reporting on Venezuelan teachers who lost their Temporary Protected Status. Before joining Report for America, Li interned at Minnesota Public Radio and FOX 5 DC. Her passion for highlighting underrepresented voices started when she interned at WLRN, Miami’s NPR station. Li grew up in Maryland and graduated from Northwestern University, where she reported for The Daily Northwestern. She speaks Mandarin and Spanish, and will never say no to mango pomelo sago or a good story.

Lia Salvatierra

Lia Salvatierra covers education in Northern Kentucky for LINK nky. Before reporting for LINK, Salvatierra spent two years as a local government accountability reporter for the Ouray County Plaindealer with Report for America. Her accountability work spanned a first-place investigation on an effort to secure local ownership over a federal reservoir to award-winning features on the area’s striking characters. In 2024, after graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill, Salvatierra attended the Hearst National Journalism Awards Championship, where she won second place for her article on the use of artificial intelligence chatbots for psychotherapy. Her work has also appeared in WyoFile, INDY Week and other outlets in North Carolina, Wyoming and Colorado. When she's not wordsmithing, Salvatierra is learning silversmithing.

Sinclair Holian

Sinclair Holian covers development and gentrification for the Coconut Grove Spotlight. Through Report for America, Holian previously covered segregation and its lasting impacts for The Roanoke Rambler in Roanoke, Virginia. Holian studied journalism at UNC Chapel Hill, where she reported on inequalities in the agriculture industry, public education, and healthcare. Her story, “Land Loss and Legacy on Historic Black-owned Farmland,” received the 2024 Article of the Year award from the national Hearst Journalism Awards Program. When she’s not chasing a story, she enjoys swimming, hiking, and exploring local thrift shops.

Gulf States Newsroom via WRKF

The Gulf States Newsroom was created to ensure that stories related to health care, criminal justice, the economy and other important issues continue to be told. WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana, WBHM in Alabama, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, and NPR are working together as a regional newsroom to plan coverage, share resources and add reporting power in a story-rich region that has for too long gone under-covered.

Salem Reporter

Salem Reporter, locally owned by a veteran Oregon journalist, is focused exclusively on reporting about the Salem area, delivering our work through our website and newsletters. Salem Reporter provides clear and compelling coverage of local government, insights into the people who hold power in the community and daily news about everything from community events to students making a difference. Our team of reporters is trusted for award-winning enterprise and investigative work.

The Florida Trib

The Florida Trib is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom that serves Florida as a vital stream of journalism, holding those in power accountable and diving beneath the surface to tell stories that would otherwise go uncovered. Our mission is to strengthen the statewide and local news ecosystems by investigating entrenched problems and proposed solutions through using news in the public interest and community engagement.

Coconut Grove Spotlight

The Coconut Grove Spotlight is an independent nonprofit news organization that covers Coconut Grove, a historic community of approximately 20,000 residents within the City of Miami., as well as Miami City Hall, which is located in the village of Coconut Grove. The Spotlight is dedicated to providing public service journalism that serves the entire Coconut Grove community and that faithfully reflects the full diversity and interests of the community and its residents.

Cardinal News

Cardinal News is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news site that serves Southwest and Southside Virginia. Our mission is to report the untold stories of Southwest and Southside Virginia, and strengthen the voices of the people in our communities who have been sidelined in the commonwealth’s political, economic and cultural conversations simply because of where they live.