Meet our new Public Service Journalism team Local business

Regional public service journalism teams provide access to public records, monitor taxpayer money and government spending, investigate information related to health, crime, and safety issues, and serve as watchdogs for communities across the country. In their previous reporting roles in Lee’s newsrooms and other news markets, the work of these team members has helped exonerate the innocent, put the guilty behind bars and change laws.

Lead Correspondent Patrick Wilson: Member of the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s state politics team since 2017. He previously worked at the Virginia-Pilot, the Winston-Salem Journal and the Potomac News in Northern Virginia. A Michigan native and graduate of Michigan State University with a journalism degree. He was a member of the ProPublica Environmental Reporting Network and reported on the 2020 impact of Virginia’s largest electric utility on state energy legislation, a project that won a first-place award for investigative reporting from the Virginia Press Association. The Virginia Coalition for Open Government FOI Media Award was awarded for using public records to help a former lieutenant governor create a career for himself at a public university where he was on the board of trustees.

Alison Bardo: For the past 10 months, her investigative work has focused on the casino industry and its impact on the local community as a reporter for the Atlantic City Press and a local reporting network partner with ProPublica. Before joining the South Jersey news organization, she supported the nonprofit Philadelphia Gun Violence Reporting. She was previously a digital reporter at the Philadelphia Business Journal, where her ongoing coverage of the city’s soda tax won a Keystone Press Award, and was a member of the reporting team at NBC10 Philadelphia, Edward R. Murrow Regional. Award’s reporting has also appeared on The Philadelphia Inquirer, WHYY’s Billie Penn, Green Philly, Crain’s Chicago Business and WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight.”

Virginia Annable: Virginia Annable joins the Eastern Public Service Journalism team from the Hickory Daily Record in Catawba County, NC where she covered local news, business and government for five years in western North Carolina. During her time at the Daily Record, Annable worked on a variety of statewide projects, including development and business-focused efforts with the North Carolina News Cooperative. Her project on North Carolina’s economic recovery from COVID-19 was selected for a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. Annable’s data-driven reporting work includes examining the spread of the COVID-19 vaccine and life expectancy in various areas of North Carolina. Annable worked at the Lenoir News-Title in Caldwell County, NC.She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Florida in Gainesville.During the 2016 presidential election, she reported for Electionland, a partnership with ProPublica investigating voter fraud and suppression.

Hayley Colombo: Hayley Colombo is a journalist based in Columbus, Ohio, specializing in public affairs reporting. Since 2019, she has served as a reporter for Columbus Business First, covering labor issues, education and diversity. Previously, Colombo was a reporter for the Indianapolis Business Journal covering urban issues, including issues of poverty and inequality. Hayley also served as a K-12 education reporter for the nonprofit online news platform Chalkbeat Indiana. She worked as a business and higher education reporter for the Lafayette Journal and Courier in Indiana. Hayley graduated from Butler University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science. She currently serves as president of the Central Ohio Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Lead Correspondent Lauren Cross: Lauren joined Lee Enterprises in 2016 as a police/breaking news reporter on the Northwest Indiana Public Safety team, immediately establishing herself as a talented, highly analytical reporter, driving some of the highest user and pageview numbers in Lee’s busiest breaking news markets. Lauren quickly became a high-impact investigative reporter, covering the core of Northwest Indiana and shining a light on the plight of underserved communities. She received top national awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Association of Journalists for her investigative work uncovering and exposing the public corruption that led to the massive lead contamination and poisoning case in East Chicago, Indiana. In the year In 2020, Lauren became a Midwest special projects reporter, helping to lead award-winning investigations into police diversity cases amid widespread civil unrest and unrest in the Midwest. For the past year, Lauren has been senior editor at the Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale and has now joined the ranks of investigative reporting, where she has had much success.

Molly Parker: Veteran investigative projects reporter in Southern Illinois since 2014. Working on a second joint ProPublica investigative report. Molly has a special focus on injustices involving children, families, and people with intellectual disabilities, including a recently published investigation detailing systematic abuse at an Illinois-state-run inpatient facility.

Analysis of Trophymuc; Previously a projects/investigative reporter for the Bloomington Pantagraph, and most recently an investigative reporter and researcher for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Better Government Association in Chicago. Annalisa is finishing up her master’s degree in data journalism from DePaul and joined the Lee Midwest team as a data specialist. In the first weeks of her career, Annalisa was training and leading information initiatives in newsrooms across the Midwest, including the “What’s Killing Our Regions?” including major work on. Project and Childhood Obesity Initiative.

Karen Robinson-Jacob: Most recently the American Fellow at the St. Louis American, past reporting and editing assignments include the Dallas Morning News, Los Angeles Times and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Expert in putting a white-hot focus on investigations of racial injustice and diversity. Karen is involved in primary data research on issues of police disparity, inequity, and accountability in the Midwest.

Lead Correspondent Marina Trahan Martinez: Marina Trahan Martinez has a distinguished multimedia career in investigative and social justice journalism. A Corpus Christi native and Texas-Arlington journalism graduate, she has worked at both community newspapers in the Dallas area and two stints at the Dallas Morning News over 11 years. She worked as a reporter, producer and editor on the Morning News Watchdog desk for five years. During that time, she appeared weekly on the air representing the Watch Dog team on KXAS-TV. Trahan Martinez was a member of the Dallas Morning News coverage team that was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for its coverage of the police killings at the Black Lives Matter rally. She has freelanced for The New York Times since 2001 and has worked under contract for ABC News 20/20 since 2019, reporting and editing stories related to North Texas. She has served the public including the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation and the Latinx Community Initiative and Journalism Scholarship Committees, Hispanic Families Network, Stories Without Borders, and the Robert W. Mong Jr. Journalism Scholarship.

Corey Jones: 2009 Graduated from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. He worked at the Topeka Capital-Journal for nearly a decade. In the year He joined the Tulsa World as a breaking news reporter in 2014, becoming the world’s leading epidemic reporter and correspondent for projects, including a hard-hitting report on the Oklahoma Highway Patrol’s hot pursuit death. His work has been honored by Leadership Tulsa, Great Plains Journalism, Local Press Association, Associated Press/Oklahoma News Executives, Oklahoma Society of Professional Journalists, Kansas City Press Club, Kansas Press Association and National Association of Black Journalists (Tulsa).

Emily Hammer: Reporter and photojournalist with the Wisconsin State Journal, now based in Houston. She began her career at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, where she produced an award-winning series about how the state bailout system excludes the poor. Covered criminal justice, the government told the Wisconsin State Journal Hammer broke major stories about inmates dying of Covid-19, inmates being housed in the same cells as those infected with the virus, and food and clothing shortages at a military base housing 13,000 Afghan refugees.

Ted McDermott: Ted McDermott is an experienced reporter and editor who has covered the environment, development, extremism and crime among many topics for newspapers in the North West for a decade. McDermott describes a Montana far-right militia member who led an armed protest at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch. investigated the legacy of uranium mining on tribal lands in eastern Washington; North Idaho Covered Police Crime; And we explored the problems of political killings at a protest in Portland, Ore., led to the shutdown of a four-part investigation into child drug abuse at a juvenile psychiatric center in Montana, an end-of-life investigation into treatment at a Montana state hospital, and the Montana governor’s recommendations for major changes in patient care. He directed the initiation of an external review.

In addition to his journalism, McDermott has published an award-winning collection of novels, including a novel and essays.He lives with his family in Spokane, Washington.