WRITING

K. Sophie Will

K. Sophie Will reports for The Spectrum in St. George, Utah, where she focuses on the major national parks in the area—Bryce Canyon, Zion, and the Grand Canyon—and the consequences of growth and tourism. Being in Utah marks a return for Will, who grew up in Draper, Utah. She is an investigative data journalist who has covered everything from local government to major human rights violations at investigative multimedia internships with NBC 10 Boston, HuffPost, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting/WGBH and The Deseret News. She has also covered daily metro news at the Boston Globe as well as climate change and women’s rights at the Thomson Reuters Foundation in London. At Boston University, where she graduated with her bachelor’s in journalism in May 2020, she was the managing editor and the pioneering in-depth and data editor at the BU News Service.

Orion Donovan-Smith

Orion Donovan-Smith covers Congress and Washington, D.C., for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. He worked as the Investigative Reporting Workshop fellow on the documentary “Plastic Wars,” a Frontline investigation into recycling and the plastics industry. Prior to that, he was an intern and later a part-time producer at the NPR program “1A” in 2019, while finishing a master’s degree in journalism from American University. Earlier in the program, he worked with the investigative team and as a general assignment reporter at The Washington Post, covering immigration. Before turning to journalism, he worked on international development programs in Central Africa. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington.

Rebecca Liebson

Rebecca Liebson reports for The State in Columbia, S.C. and focuses on public and substandard housing in the state capital. Rebecca Liebson was part of the New York Times’ inaugural fellowship class. She worked for The Weekly, The Times’ first-ever television news series, helping to produce episodes about a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes, the culture of sexual harassment in the world of yoga and more. Liebson has also written for the metro desk where she led The Times’ breaking news coverage of an anti-Semitic attack on a Rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York. Before she arrived at The Times, Liebson held internships at NBC, The New York Post and WSHU Public Radio. She graduated from Stony Brook University in 2019. Her work for The Statesman student newspaper earned her a Hearst Award for Enterprise Writing as well as the title of Best College News Reporter from the Press Club of Long Island for two consecutive years.

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead has a proud history of serving its audience critical information for more than 130 years. The news organization, the largest in North Dakota, serves community members in both North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, The Forum is continually recognized with awards by professional news organizations for excellence in news, sports, feature reporting, design, advertising, opinion writing, editorial cartoons and photojournalism. The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead is part of the Forum News Service, which gathers and distributes content from news organizations throughout the region.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is the product of the 1995 merger of the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel, newspapers that date to 1882 and 1837 respectively. After two transitions, we are part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, which includes 10 other newsrooms in Wisconsin and 109 newsrooms nationwide —a number that will grow with the Gannett-GateHouse merger. While we regularly do stories with national interest and impact, our focus is fiercely local. We cover Milwaukee, southeastern Wisconsin and the state like no one else does – or can. We are most proud of the day-to-day reporting that chronicles our community, informs our residents and holds officials accountable for what they do. We expose wrongdoing. We highlight programs that work. We engage the community. We help lead the search for solutions.

City Limits

City Limits is an award-winning, non-profit news agency that uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action. For more than 40 years, we have covered key urban issues such as housing and development, education, government, immigration, the environment, criminal justice and the economy with award-winning investigative journalism.

Mission Local

With more than ten years of experience, Mission Local is more than a neighborhood news site. We are a local news site that covers city-wide issues from the ground up. We are digital-first, led by a Latina and focused on producing trustworthy journalism. There are no shortcuts to the latter. We don’t aggregate. We make phone calls, read documents, pound the pavement, attend meetings. We talk to people on the street.

The Desert Sun

The Desert Sun is a small but mighty newsroom covering the Coachella Valley in Southern California. The Desert Sun is known for its groundbreaking environmental coverage, extensive arts reporting and watchdog journalism. The paper has won numerous awards, including an Edward R. Murrow award for a short film, “Freed But Forgotten: A Proposition 47 Investigation.” As a member of the USA Today network, its reporting regularly also appears in USA Today and 100+ other Gannett Co. papers. In addition to local news coverage, The Desert Sun produces a magazine, DESERT; a music festival called Tachevah; and a community storytelling series.

The Sacramento Bee

The Sacramento Bee is the only daily newspaper covering California’s capital city. At 161 years old, the news organization is McClatchy’s flagship. The newspaper’s coverage area extends along the I-80 corridor from Lake Tahoe to the East and up to but not necessarily including the Bay Area. The newspaper covers northern California regularly as well as Stockton. In Sacramento, readers expect The Sacramento Bee to hold elected officials at the statehouse to account, and they rely on the newspaper for deep environmental coverage in addition to local government and growth.

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead has a proud history of serving its audience critical information for more than 130 years. The news organization, the largest in North Dakota, serves community members in both North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, The Forum is continually recognized with awards by professional news organizations for excellence in news, sports, feature reporting, design, advertising, opinion writing, editorial cartoons and photojournalism. The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead is part of the Forum News Service, which gathers and distributes content from news organizations throughout the region.