The Journalism Salute

On this episode, I’m joined by Yanqi Xu . Yanqi is a reporter for the Flatwater Free Press in Omaha, Nebraska, the state’s first independent non-profit newsroom. She grew up in China and went to college in Beijing before getting her masters at Missouri. Yanqi talked about her journalism origin story and about the kind of work she does at the Free Press and described the challenges of doing long in...

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Kasha Patel. Kasha is the deputy weather editor for the Capital Weather Gang at the Washington Post, covering weather, climate, and the environment. Kasha talked about her path from NASA to her current position, how she covers both hard news stories and fun features, including fact checking a volcanic explosion in a The Lord of the Rings series. She also explain...

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Inez Russell Gomez . Inez is the editorial page editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican – notable that we haven’t talked to an editorial page editor or a New Mexican yet. Her journalism career spans more than 40 years, much of that in New Mexico. Inez talked about her journalism origin story and her present role both writing editorials and producing an editorial page...

On this episode we’re joined by Liz Robbins . Liz is currently the director of journalism partnerships for Define American , an organization whose goal is to humanize the immigrant experience in the media one story at a time. Prior to this job, Liz was a longtime reporter for the New York Times, first covering sports and then immigration. She’s also a journalism teacher and professor and wrote a b...

For our 100 th episode, we’re joined by Scott MacFarlane, who covers Congress and the January 6 aftermath for CBS News. Scott has been with CBS since January after leaving the NBC affiliate in DC. He’s covered Washington D.C. for nearly 20 years and has had a long career as an investigative journalist. His Twitter ( @macfarlanenews ) is the go-to source for information about every January 6 th cou...

On this episode, we’re joined by Nick Hirshon . Nick’s our first repeat guest. He’s an associate professor of communications at William Paterson University, a co-host of the Journalism History podcast , and is the editor of the upcoming issue of the academic journal – American Journalism . That’s our subject today. The issues looks at the history of investigative reporting, the hook being the 50 t...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Cyd Zeigler . Cyd is the co-founder of Outsports , a website covering LGBTQ+ issues in sports. He’s also the author/co-author of 3 books, most recently My Life On The Line: How the NFL Damn Near Killed Me and Ended Up Saving My Life by Ryan O’Callaghan. He’s broken many stories related to athletes coming out publicly regarding their sexuality and is a membe...

Trân Nguyễn is a bilingual investigative reporter and data journalist who has covered the Vietnamese community, homelessness and health care in Santa Clara County for the San Jose Spotlight via Report for America . She is a native of Saigon, Vietnam and grew up in an environment in which most media was state-sponsored. Now, she’s covering a city with the largest Vietnamese population in the United...

On this episode, Mark Simon talks to Alissa Quart . Alissa is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. The Economic Hardship Reporting Project funds and co-publishes reporting, supporting independent journalists who do stories that counteract typical narratives all related to inequality. It can be found at economichardship.org . Alissa talked about her career, provided ex...

On this episode, we salute and interview Donnell Suggs , editor-in-chief of The Atlanta Voice , which is the longest running and only Black newspaper in Atlanta.  Donnell has covered business, features, real estate, religion, and sports during his time in the industry. He’s a native of Brooklyn N.Y.  He talked about his time as a New York City police officer and why he decided he wanted to become...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Wesley Early , a reporter for Alaska Public Media, who covers city government and Anchorage life.  Wesley talked about his career, which has taken him through both large and small markers in Alaska, and the day-to-day duties of the job. He also explained how being Black in a state with a very small Black population plays a role in how he does his job. And h...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Jane Wolfe . Jane is a longtime journalist who has written 3 biographies, the most recent of which is titled Burl, Journalism Giant and Medical Trailblazer . It’s about Burl Osborne, a prominent journalist and newspaper publisher who had a distinguished career at the Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News . Jane talked about her career, about Burl’s l...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Ben Welsh , the visiting senior data journalist at Stanford University who is working on the project, Big Local News. He’s also been a longtime data journalism editor at the Los Angeles Times. Ben talked about his journalism origin story, the different projects he’s worked on, how Big Local News is helping to make data journalism accessible to smaller media...

On this episode, we salute John Vitti . John is a man of many skills. He’s been a layout, copy, and online editor/multi-platform editor for the sports department of the Boston Globe for 23 years. He’s also a high school journalism teacher, an elementary school newspaper advisor, and the founder of a journalism program for kids, Headliners in Education . John talked with Mark Simon about all of tho...

On this episode, we salute and interview Alexis Terrazas . He’s the editor in chief of El Tecolote (The Owl), a bilingual Latino newspaper that has served the San Francisco Bay Area Latino community since 1970. Prior to that, he wrote for Patch and the San Francisco Examiner.  Alexis shared his journalism origin story, explained the types of stories that El Tecolote covered, and detailed why he’s...

On today’s episode, we salute Katie Hawkins-Gaar .  Katie is a freelance writer and the founder of Digital Women Leaders , a mentoring program for women and non-binary people working in news who are looking for advice from someone who understands their experience. It’s a free program with dozens of coaches available for a 30-minute session. Katie also edits the newsletter, My Sweet Dumb Brain , a...

On this episode, we’re joined by Anushka De . Anushka is a freshman from Cupertino California studying computer science at Stanford University. This past year, Anushka was named the Journalism Education Association Student Journalist of the Year and the National Scholastic Press Association’s Writer of the Year.  Anushka talked about her initial fear of being a journalist and how she overcame it a...

On this episode, we’re joined by Ahmed Ahmed. Ahmed was named the Nevada Student Journalist of the Year – by the Journalism Education Association . He spent 3 years on the staff of the Southwest Shadow at Southwest Career and Technical Academy . And he’s now headed to the University of Chicago to study political science. Ahmed talked about his journalism origin story, why opinion writing is so imp...

On this episode, we salute Erin Perry , the managing editor of Outlier Media.  Outlier Media is a Detroit-based service journalism organization that identifies, reports, and delivers valuable information to empower residents to hold landlords, municipal government, and elected officials accountable for longstanding problems. They do this with text messaging, newsletters, and a section of OutlierMe...

On this episode we’re joined by Mariel Padilla . Mariel is a general assignment reporter for The 19th .  The 19 th is an independent non-profit newsroom reporting on gender, politics, and policy. It’s name invokes the 19 th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. She’s been with them for 2 years after working for a year as a reporting fellow for the NY Times. And she was a part of a Pulitze...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Nicole Neroulias Gupte . Nicole is an editor with Global Press Journal , a news organization working with women around the world covering undercovered countries. She’s also the founder and executive editor of Trailing-Spouse ( Trailing-Spouse.com ), an online magazine and community that shares stories of expats, military families and significant others who...

On today’s episode, we’re joined by James Queally , who covers courts, crime, and police for the Los Angeles Times. He previously had a similar job for the Newark Star-Ledger.  James is the 2 nd Pulitzer winner to join us (Ted Bridis is the other). He was part of a 2015 breaking news team that covered the San Bernadino terrorist attacks that won the Pulitzer.  He’s also a book author – 2 novels. J...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Javeria Salman , a digital news producer and staff writer at The Hechinger Report , which covers innovation and inequality in education.   Her beat is the future of learning in kindergarten through 12 th grade and her work is most often seen in a newsletter that comes out every 2 weeks. She’s based in New York City.   Javeria talked about her journalism car...

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by Aneri Pattani . She’s a national correspondent for Kaiser Health News based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has a VERY full resume – with internships, reporting, and radio producing work. She has won an award from INN for her news reporting. Aneri is also teaching an online class on responsible reporting of suicides on the Coursera online platform and gave...

On this episode Mark Simon talked to to Jen Maxfield . Jen is a reporter and substitute anchor for WNBC TV in New York. She’s has spent nearly 20 years reporting in and around New York City. She’s also the author of More After the Break from Greenleaf Press (out July 12) – this book revisits news stories from Jen’s reporting past. It’s a book of storytelling and of where-are-they now reporting. It...