We are delighted to announce three thrilling new hires to our reporting team.
Roxanna Asgarian will be our new legislation and courts reporter, tracking how the authorized process styles the life of Texans and the politics of this state. Roxanna is an impartial journalist who until finally recently was primarily based in Houston and has released items in New York Journal, The Washington Put up, Texas Every month, Time and other periodicals. Her very first guide, “We Were being When a Spouse and children: A Story of Appreciate, Loss of life, and Kid Removal in The usa,” about six kids adopted from Texas who died with their mothers and fathers in a California murder-suicide, will be posted by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in March. The e book delves deeply into the child welfare program in Texas. Roxanna impressed us with the good quality of her creating and her analytical solution to covering the legislation judges, lawmakers and lawyers and the standard Texans caught up in authorized conclusions. A indigenous of Las Vegas and a graduate of the College of Texas at Austin and the Craig Newmark Graduate University of Journalism at CUNY, Roxanna enjoys gardening and hanging out with her partner and 5-yr-old youngster. They recently moved to Dallas, wherever Roxanna will be primarily based, reporting to senior editor David Pasztor.
Robert Downen will be our new democracy reporter, concentrating on disinformation, extremism and threats to democracy alongside with the revenue and movements that gas political activism in this state. Robert joins us from the Houston Chronicle, in which he covers nonprofits and other small business information. He was the lead reporter on “Abuse of Religion,” a series that in-depth hundreds of scenarios of sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist Conference. The collection, which Robert learned and pitched while he was a Hearst Fellow and masking Houston Metropolis Corridor, was named the most important world-wide religion story of 2019 by the Faith News Association. Its conclusions go on to dominate the agenda of the nation’s next-greatest religion team and are at the core of an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Section of Justice. Robert previously was a enterprise reporter at the Albany Occasions Union and taking care of editor of a tiny newspaper group in his hometown in Illinois. He grew up in the Chicago area, graduated from Japanese Illinois University and in his totally free time enjoys participating in and generating tunes and hanging out with his two pet dogs. He’ll be based in Austin as a member of the politics workforce led by Rebekah Allen.
Alejandra Martinez will be our new ecosystem reporter. She joins us from KERA in Dallas, where she commenced as a Report for The usa fellow and then included Dallas Metropolis Hall. Earlier, she worked at WLRN, South Florida’s general public radio station, as an associate producer. Following her relentless coverage of a shingle mountain — a dumped pile of roofing waste that triggered brown dust and fiberglass to blow into the communities of shade nearby — the metropolis of Dallas started discussions about taking away the product. When she realized about a Superfund web page in Grand Prairie, she knocked on the doors of dozens of Spanish-talking homes to advise them of the threat. Just after her story aired, the Environmental Protection Company hosted its very first neighborhood event in the area because 2018 and announced plans for cleanup. A indigenous of the Aldine region of Harris County, Alejandra attended the University of Texas at Austin. She spends her spare time with her cat, Dakota, binge watching tv dramas and examining romance novels, for which she has a focused Instagram account. She’ll be centered in Dallas, reporting to Dave Harmon, editor for natural environment, vitality and immigration, and partnering with Erin Douglas, who is focusing on climate improve.
These journalists will be pivotal to the Tribune’s evolution over the up coming several decades. We couldn’t be more fired up about these new hires, all of whom get started at the stop of the month.
Disclosure: Texas Month-to-month and College of Texas at Austin have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information firm that is funded in aspect by donations from customers, foundations and corporate sponsors. Economic supporters participate in no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Locate a finish record of them below.
