WFAE will add three journalists to its newsroom in June to cover race and equity issues.
The journalists are part of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to cover under-reported topics and communities.
Gracyn Doctor and Dante Miller will cover race and equity issues as part of a new team that will help transform the way WFAE covers communities of color and issues of equity.
Maria Ramirez Uribe will work for WFAE and the Spanish-language newspaper La Noticia to report on Charlotte’s Latino community. This is the second year that the two organizations will share a Report for America corps member.
“These talented journalists are joining WFAE at a critical time for our region – and the country,” said Ju-Don Marshall, WFAE’s executive vice president and chief content officer. “The disproportionate impact of the ongoing pandemic on Black and Latino communities and the fight for social justice and to end systemic racism create even more urgency to expand our coverage of race- and equity-related issues.”
“I am grateful to Report for America, our board of directors and this community for providing the support we need to create solutions-driven coverage and conversations on these important topics,” Marshall added.
All three journalists have been working at WFAE on temporary reporting projects. Doctor and Ramirez Uribe are currently reporting on the financial impact of COVID-19 on the Black and Latino communities.
Miller joined WFAE last year as a Report for America corps member, along with reporter Alexandra Watts, working on a collaborative project for WFAE, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and Digital Public Library of America. Through that project, Miller and Watts have written articles on notable community figures and answered community questions about everything from voting to the pandemic to finding jobs and training. The collaboration will end in May.
About Report for America
Launched in 2017, Report for America is creating a new, sustainable system that provides Americans with information they need to improve their communities, hold powerful institutions accountable, and rebuild trust in the media. Report for America is an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, an award-winning nonprofit journalism organization with an established track record of training and supporting teams of emerging journalists around the world, including the recent launch of Report for the World in partnership with local newsrooms in India and Nigeria.
About WFAE
WFAE is a multimedia news organization serving the greater Charlotte region with an award-winning mix of local, national and international news, and entertainment programs from NPR and other content partners. WFAE is licensed as the University Radio Foundation Inc. to broadcast in Charlotte at 90.7 FM, in Hickory at 90.3 FM, in Laurinburg at 106.1 FM, and in Southern Pines, at 93.7 FM. WFAE radio broadcasts serve more than 320,000 monthly listeners, with the station’s website WFAE.org reaching 350,000 monthly readers.