The Journalism Salute

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Russell Midori , a TV photojournalist and the president of Military Veterans in Journalism, an organization that mentors veterans who want to work in journalism after their service concludes. Russell talked about his military career and transition to video work, shooting, editing and producing features, news stories, and documentaries. He gave examples of work h...

On today’s episode, we’re joined by April Alonso. April is the co-founder of the award-winning Cicero Independiente , a bilingual news website and publication based in Cicero, Illinois, along with Irene Romulo and Ankur Singh. The Independiente just won two awards from the Institute for Non-Profit News for the 11-part series – Unrest in Cicero – How One Day Shook a Town – coverage of racial violen...

On today’s show, Mark Simon is joined by Insider investigative sports writer Bradford William Davis .   Bradford talked about his career path – from starting a newsletter with a friend to eventually (after time at several start-ups and HBO) as a sports columnist for the Daily News and now for the website, Insider.   Bradford often writes about social justice issues as they relate to sports. We dis...

On this episode, Mark Simon  is joined by one of his favorite sportswriters, enterprise reporter, Alex Coffey , who has written for The Athletic, The New York Times, USA Today, and FoxSports.com. Alex told the story of how she got into the business, following the path of her father as a sports enterprise writer and her mother as journalists, and explained how her appreciation of history is so impo...

On this episode, Mark Simon talks to Ken Partridge , a music journalist and author of Hell of a Hat, The Best of 90s Ska and Swing. Ken talked about how his interests in journalism and music began and evolved, some of the prominent musicians he’s interviewed and how he finds little tidbits to make stories on everything he does (including Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer) distinct. He also shared...

On this episode, we’re joined by David Cutler , a history and journalism teacher at Brimmer and May School in Massachusetts, as well as the Executive Director of the Private School Journalism Association . David discussed both the work of his organization and his journalism teaching. The PSJA is attempting to increase membership and work to develop policies with private and independent schools reg...

On today’s show, we’re joined by César Rodríguez , a photojournalist and GroundTruth fellow based in Mexico. You might have heard our recent interview with photojournalist Aryana Noroozi a couple of episodes ago. César has a distinct story to tell as well. César talked about his path to journalism through chocolate(!),a recent project he did for GroundTruth on a Mexican migrant camp, how he approa...

Farnoush Amiri is one of the busiest journalists we’ve gotten to interview. She is currently a reporter for the Associated Press as part of the Report for America , covering a broad range of stories out of Columbus, Ohio. She is also a vice-president for the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), and a co-director of the Voices program for the Asian-American Journalists Association (AAJA) .  ...

On this episode, Mark Simon joined by investigative reporter and data journalist Adam Rhodes . Adam is a queer, first-generation Cuban-American who works uncovering corruption and wrongdoing in our nation's health care and criminal justice systems. Adam reports for the Chicago Reader as a social justice reporting fellow and is president of the Chicago chapter of the NLGJA, which is the Associa...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Aryana Noroozi , a photojournalist working with The GroundTruth Project and Pulitzer Center on impactful community reporting.   Aryana talked about her career path, her photography style, and the different projects she worked on as a recent student at Columbia Journalism School. She also discussed one of her biggest projects, documenting remote learning and...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Sean Lahman , Watchdog Reporter for The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle . Sean talked about his career path - from working on baseball databases and sports encyclopedias to his current role with the D&C. Sean talked about developing both technical skills and storytelling skills and how that allowed him to differentiate from others in the field. He ga...

NOTE: We're going to an every-other-week schedule in June and July, so check out one of our first episodes ... This originally aired in August 2020 (hence the references to the Trump Administration). --- On this episode of The Journalism Salute, Mark is joined by Allison Augustyn, the executive director of InvestigateWest , a non-profit journalism studio based in Seattle.   In Allison’s words,...

On this episode of The Journalism Salute, Mark Simon is joined by Mona Holmes of Eater LA . Mona talked about her career path and the entrepreneurial ventures she tried before deciding that food journalism was what she wanted to do. She explained how food journalism is more than just about food, that it’s about telling stories about people and reporting on policy. She also discussed the process by...

NOTE: Taking the week off, so thought I'd dial it back to the very beginning - August 2020- with Episode 1a (I did 2 episodes to start- we'll call them both 1a). This one is one of my favorites because the topics are interesting and the approach is so different. Back next week with a new episode. Enjoy! --- On this episode of The Journalism Salute, Mark is joined by Eve Pearlman, the co-fo...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Carol Robidoux , the founder and publisher of the Manchester Ink Link , a news website serving Manchester, New Hampshire and its surrounding community. Carol talked about her path to her current role and explained what’s in a name – both the name of the website and her self-appointed title of Chief Instigating Officer. She also discussed what a news organiz...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by 40-year copy editor and World War II oral historian Aaron Elson.   Aaron talked about his long career in newspapers, emphasizing his role as a counselor of wayward commas about their place in sentences, protecting the English language, and writing headlines   He also talked about his work compiling more than 600 hours of oral history of World War II and the...

On this episode, Mark Simon talked to Steve Novotney , a 30-year journalism veteran who co-founded Lede News to cover the Upper Ohio Valley in West Virginia. Steve talked about his background in baseball, print media, and radio talk shows and all that led him to his current position as publisher and podcast host. Steve talked about the decline of local news and how his online newspaper intends to...

This week, Mark Simon and Emmy Liederman are joined by Kassidy Arena , a reporter for Iowa Public Radio and a product of the Report For America program. Kassidy talked about her radio career and the work she does covering issues impacting Iowa’s growing Latino community. She also discussed her background as a journalist and how she didn’t think she would go into radio because she was hard of heari...

In this episode, Emmy Liederman is joined by two other student journalists, Hadriana Lowenkron and J.D. Duggan. Hadriana is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Pennsylvanian and J.D. is the city editor of The Minnesota Daily.      They share what they’ve learned from covering race relations in their cities over the past year and best practices for making sure that all audiences are adequately represe...

In this episode, Emmy Liederman is joined by multilingual journalist and author Fernanda Santos. Santos was the first Brazilian to work as a staff writer at The New York Times, where covered the American Southwest. She is now a full-time professor at Arizona State University and a contributing columnist at The Washington Post.  Fernanda’s book, “The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hot...

On this episode of The Journalism Salute, Mark Simon and Emmy Liederman were joined by Graham Lee Brewer, a newly-hired enterprise reporter for NBC News Digital, a former reporter and editor for High Country News, and the secretary for the Native American Journalists Association (Graham is a Cherokee Nation citizen).   Graham talked about his new job and the reporting work he had done on Native Am...

On today’s episode, Mark and Emmy are joined by Dr. Ed Madison, a professor at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of The Journalistic Learning Initiative, a program aimed at getting students to learn through journalism at a young age. Dr. Madison described the history of the program, how it works with middle school students in Oregon and California, and shared the many successes the progr...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Ben Chase, a reporter for The Huron Daily Plainsman in Huron, South Dakota (population 13,000). Ben took an interesting path to his position, having previously worked as a social worker, in youth ministry, and as a freelance baseball writer. Ben discussed working as a jack-of-all-trades who takes curiosity and his desire to help people into his work. One da...

On this episode, Mark Simon and Emmy Liederman are joined by Iliana Limón Romero and Ashley Colley, the chair of the board and president of The Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM – pronounced “Awesome”). Iliana is the deputy sports editor of the Los Angeles Times. Ashley is an associate producer at ESPN. They discussed the goals of the organization and initiatives for members related to c...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Barbara Crossette, senior consulting editor and writer for PassBlue, a non-profit journalism organization that covers the United Nations. Barbara is a former international reporter and editor for the New York Times, who has more than 50 years of journalism experience (she turns 82 in July) Barbara gave examples of the kinds of stories she and the site cover...