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Amaris Castillo and Angela Fu (Images via Castillo and Fu)

This newsletter was the one thing I asked to continue when I moved from full-time reporting to full-time teaching at Poynter last year. I argued that it’s critical in the new role to continue reporting on what’s happening in local news, and the newsletter helps me do that. It’s important to stay in the news cycle. It does that, too. And I just really like you all.

But I knew there’d be times when I had to devote whole weeks to teaching. What happens to this newsletter during those weeks?

Luckily I have two colleagues who are willing to step in and take over now and then. You probably already know their names and have read their work. They are Amaris Castillo and Angela Fu. Both are intrepid reporters who devote much of their time to covering local news. Both worked on our Some Personal News ([link removed]) series. And both have carved out beats we needed at Poynter — Amaris with culture and identity, and Angela with labor and unions.

Next week is one of those weeks, I’ll be in Washington D.C., with a weeklong Poynter training (my first in-person event in 25 months!). So next week, Angela and Amaris will be your Local Edition hosts.

But first, I thought we’d do some formal introductions.

So, Local Edition reader, meet Angela and Amaris! I asked them a few questions to help you get to know them better.

Kristen: What’s your favorite story that you’ve written for Poynter?

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Angela: I've been lucky to have the chance to cover a lot of interesting topics for Poynter, but my favorite story that I've written is probably this one about the unionization movement ([link removed]) within journalism. The industry has been unionizing rapidly in recent years — not only at digital publications and legacy outlets, but also television and public radio — and I wanted to look at why. I also wanted to create a definitive (or as close to definitive as possible) record of all the union drives from the past decade in the hopes that other labor journalists and scholars might find that data useful.

Amaris: I have a few, but my most recent favorite is a story I wrote about Black women journalists who have chosen to wear their hair natural, on air ([link removed]) . Using the hashtag #NaturalHairOnAir, these anchors, reporters and meteorologists upload photos of themselves at work, in afros, cornrows, Bantu knots, braids and more. They have chosen to embrace their natural texture unapologetically, pushing against the norm. In my reporting, I set out to try to understand all that surrounds the decision to go natural in an industry that has not always embraced it. Each woman I interviewed taught me so much, and the story resonated with others. Just the other week I received the kindest note from a young Black journalist who had been trying to wear her hair natural at work. She told me she showed her story to management, and is now rocking her natural hair. I was blown away that my story made an impact on
someone’s life. And, of course, I was grateful for the opportunity to contribute a small piece of this greater conversation around anti-Black hair sentiment in the workplace.

Kristen: Tell us about your plans for Local Edition takeovers.

Amaris: First of all, thank you Kristen for trusting us with your baby! I am excited about our takeover. Angela and I have discussed what we want to do. I hope to talk a little about feature profiles of everyday people. You know that person you always see in your community, that everyone recognizes, but whose story no one knows? I want to talk about how to write about that person. I’ll be bringing up the past (some old newspaper articles I’ve written) and share tips on how our Local Edition audience can apply it to their communities. We also want to look into education labs and, further down, elections reporting.

Angela: I think what I love most about Local Edition is how the newsletter often highlights creative, thought-provoking initiatives local journalists across the country are undertaking in service of their communities. So I'm definitely hoping to do more of that! Amaris and I have talked a bit about topics we're hoping to dig into, like the rise of the lab model in education reporting and how local publications are preparing for the midterms. But I'm also looking forward to just talking to local journalists and hearing about all the interesting work they're doing.

That’s it for me, I’m off this week with my kids, who are on spring break with the rest of Tampa Bay, so we’re doing the obscure, out-of-the-way kind of stuff that I love most. I'll be back in your inbox in two weeks.

Kristen
Kristen Hare
Faculty
The Poynter Institute
@kristenhare ([link removed])

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