News Reporting

For the fifth anniversary of the Almeda Fire, the Ashland.news team and I brainstormed coverage for the week. This is one of three of my articles that week where the Ashland.news photographer and I took a tour of a manufactured home park in Talent — devastated in the fire and then rebuilt to withstand future wildfires. Residents and wildfire survivors Penny and Steve Thorpe welcomed me into their house and told me the story of the day of the fire, the next morning and the long-term recovery.

Using public records, data and facts this enterprise story turned into months of investigation. While contacting various organizations and activist groups about immigration actions in the Rogue Valley, I received a tip that led to the discovery of the largest ICE raid in Southern Oregon since the start of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions early 2025. I eventually confirmed this with the Drug Enforcement Administration and public records. Reporting this story in the middle of the government shutdown proved difficult and forced me to wait for more information. Despite almost breaking the story ourselves, another publication confirmed the raid first, which further solidified the facts of the raid.

Once I heard about the No Kings II rally hitting the Rogue Valley, I immediately volunteered to cover it. I wrote an article in advance of the events, along with live updates due to a false cancellation. I attended and covered both the Ashland rally and Medford rally on a tight deadline, taking photos and videos along the way.

Working from a press release, I wrote this article in advance of the event. It’s a prime example of rural entrepreneurship as community members help their neighbors in need. This was one of the articles I wrote while remote and was able to quickly connect with the sources in the story because of previous reporting with them.

In this enterprise story, I considered the 27 Ukrainian families finding refuge in Ashland and decided to uplift their voices. This is one of three of my stories featuring Ukrainian Ashlanders. Considering my source only spoke Ukrainian, her daughter translated our entire interview for us (with some assistance from Google Translate). It was a joy to get to know Ukrainian culture and write about powerful women sharing their culture with the Rogue Valley through singing.

What started as an email to Ashland.news turned into a two-part series following a man on a journey to keep his daughter’s legacy alive through running. In the second part of the series attached here, I met him at the finish line of his first 100-mile race and encountered the first time I had to seek medical attention during an interview. I also interviewed renowned ultrarunner Hal Koerner about this year’s final Pine to Palm 100.

Following multiple drugging allegations at fraternities, the University of Oregon Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, implemented a new social plan to address safety at social events. The plan includes a two-event limit per term, which is arguably the most notable and controversial aspect of the plan, which I talk to chapter leaders about. In addition, I also wrote and filmed an explainer video to add more context to an aspect of the article and promote the article on social media, which garnered over 3k views.

Within a week, this became the most viewed story in 10 years on the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication website reaching over 16k views compared to the usual few thousand. In preparation for election season in the fall, my reporting partner and I started a piece on media and election trends of 2024 in May. My partner graduated in June and I handled a complete rewrite when election conditions drastically changed in the summer. Graphic by Allison VanSciver.

After a visit to 16 different media organizations in NYC through the University of Oregon, I pitched a story to JournalismUK (now journalism.co.uk) that gathers their advice for young journalists. This article is also available in Vietnamese. I also created a short-form “Day in the Life” during the experience to be posted on the UO School of Journalism and Communication Instagram.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Washington Post journalist, former Iranian hostage and press freedom advocate Jason Rezaian in advance of his visit to the University of Oregon. Getting to know Rezaian was a joy and I absorbed as much of his wisdom as I could over coffee during his visit. A year later, I had the honor of taking a class on hostage diplomacy which he co-taught and eventually traveled to Washington D.C. and visited the Washington Post for that course.