Sarah Alvarez started in civil rights law before becoming a senior producer and reporter for Michigan Radio, the Ann Arbor-based NPR affiliate. Believing that journalism is a service that should be responsive to the needs of all, Alvarez wanted to find a way to fill the information and accountability gaps in communities where those things are needed the most, typically low-income neighborhoods.

Cara Williams Fry has been the Chief Content Officer at WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, since 2010. WITF has a unique and successful culture of community engagement journalism.

Ariel Worthy, a reporter for WESA in Pittsburgh, spent 2020 as one of StateImpact Pennsylvania’s embedded journalists as part of the America Amplified initiative.

Brittani Howell is the community engagement specialist for Side Effects Public Media. She leads various community engagement efforts, from texting exchanges to hosting events. She shared this workflow with us.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service, covering health issues from a consumer perspective, as well as state education policy. She previously worked at the Taipei Times and Topeka Capital-Journal, and brings in-depth experience covering schools.

Jeff Young is the managing editor of Ohio Valley ReSource. He is an award-winning journalist and has reported from Appalachian coalfields, Capitol Hill, and New England’s coast, among other places. His book, “Appalachian Fall: Dispatches from Coal Country on What's Ailing America,” was released in August 2020.

Robin Tate Rockel is Community Engagement Manager at Indiana Public Broadcasting. She spoke with Ann Alquist of America Amplified about her job and how it is integrated into the Indiana Public Broadcasting newsroom.

Kate Concannon is the managing editor of the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration of public media stations that serve the Rocky Mountain States of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Montana and Wyoming.

Toward Racial Justice is WITF’s digital conversation series addressing systemic racism and injustice in Central Pennsylvania and beyond. To develop the series, we called upon the voice and perspective of a diverse organizing committee.

Andrea Tudhope was the senior producer for America Amplified’s national talk show centered around the 2020 election. She shares how she prioritized diversity and listening to create the show and how the show highlighted community stories from across the country.

America Amplified and Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication are partnering on a free course on understanding the news and how journalism works. “Mediactive: How to Participate in Our Digital World,” is now accepting enrollment for the October session.

Fear of COVID-19 and a strong desire for action against systemic racism continues to emerge as top of mind for people across America. Here’s what our reporters and producers learned in July.

KOSU in Oklahoma has been producing audio diaries submitted by Oklahomans. Kateleigh Mills, the station’s special projects reporter, shares how the process works and how she gives the diarists ownership in the final product.

Nate Hegyi, a reporter with the Mountain West News Bureau, will ride his bike 900 miles along the Great Divide from late August through September. He will stop at towns in 4 states along the way to learn what’s on the minds of communities ahead of the November election.

As part of our work with reporters, we asked them to ask the same throughline questions so that we may better understand America’s concerns and aspirations. Here’s what we’ve learned so far.

The St.. Louis-based “We Live Here” podcast and America Amplified take a look at how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the unsheltered and homeless, who are among the most vulnerable communities in the country.

It all begins with an idea.

In 2020, New Hampshire Public Radio launched a concerted effort to meet the information needs of the state’s Spanish-speaking audience. The effort led by reporter Daniela Allee resulted in a daily newscast, translated into Spanish, that’s gaining audience via WhatsApp.

Seth Bodine covers agriculture and rural issues for KOSU in Oklahoma as a Report For America corps member. In December 2020, he published a story about the poor quality of water in Hobart, Oklahoma. Here’s how he discovered the story through Facebook.