The Star hires 3 reporters covering Missouri gun violence in partnership with RFA
The Kansas City Star, in partnership with the national service program Report for America, is hiring three full-time reporters to cover gun violence in Missouri.
The reporters will be based at The Star and will start this summer. Jelani Gibson is currently a Mayborn School of Journalism teaching assistant at the University of North Texas, and will be finishing his master’s degree this year. Humera Lodhi will graduate in May with a master’s degree from Columbia University. Kaitlin Washburn has worked for the past year as an RFA corps member covering agriculture for The Sun-Gazette in California.
The group, paid with the help of a grant awarded through the RFA program, will join The Star’s staff and launch the statewide project at the beginning of June.
“We can’t wait to get started working with Jelani, Humera and Kaitlin,” said Greg Farmer, The Star’s managing editor. “We’re excited about both the impactful journalism and solutions-focused community engagement they will bring to Missouri’s gun violence crisis.
“We will call on our entire staff to support this important work, and we’re thrilled to have Report for America as a partner.”
Missouri has for years ranked No. 1 in the nation for its rate of black homicide victims. The state’s three biggest cities — Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield — have been among the top 12 most dangerous cities in the United States.
The reporters will investigate the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to the gun violence problem in Missouri, where black people are killed at a per capita rate nine times the overall national homicide rate.
Ian Cummings, an editor at The Star who leads the crime and justice team, will oversee the project. The Star was one of several McClatchy newsrooms around the country selected to host reporters in the program.
“The Kansas City Star’s gun violence project is exactly the type of local reporting we love to support,” said Kim Kleman, national director of Report for America. “We’re excited to see what these three talented watchdog journalists, supported by a great newsroom staff, can bring to this critical community issue.”
The reporters
Gibson grew up in Washington, D.C., and is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, where he got his start in journalism as a public affairs photojournalist. He also worked as an education reporter at the Weatherford (Texas) Democrat.
In the interview process with Gibson, Star editors were particularly impressed with his perseverance as a journalist at UNT’s student newspaper, the North Texas Daily. He wrote stories about hazing and sexual assault allegations at a fraternity, which were then pulled by school administrative officials. He continued to push ahead with an investigative team of student journalists and self-published the deeply reported articles.
”Coming to Kansas City as a Report for America corps member and working on an investigative team covering one of the most critical issues in America is a humbling task I look forward to,” Gibson said. “The Kansas City Star has a proud local history of storied journalism, and the RFA program aims to strengthen that legacy. The collaboration between both organizations enhances local coverage of the communities journalists serve.”
Lodhi grew up in Columbia, Missouri, and her bachelor’s degree is from the University of Missouri. Her specialty is data-driven journalism and she is finalizing her thesis on how qualified immunity is overused by police and other agencies in western Missouri.
She will soon start a fellowship at The Marshall Project, a journalism nonprofit focused on criminal justice issues.
Her work covers a range of stories, from an explainer on how social media is fueling nationalism around the world to a watchdog story on how private dams in Missouri are a little-known hazard. In the interview process, Lodhi showed she was ready to hit the ground running, presenting strong ideas on how The Star can use data to drive its reporting.
“I am excited to be back in Missouri, my home state - and the best state!” Lodhi said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to cover an issue as important as gun violence and to contribute to the great reporting the paper does. I am looking forward to being part of The Kansas City Star team. Can’t wait to get started!”
Washburn is a 2019 graduate of MU, where her emphasis was in investigative reporting. She spent three years as a researcher for the Investigative Reporters and Editors journalism nonprofit and covered the Missouri General Assembly for a session.
Before starting with RFA, she had internships at the Center for Responsive Politics and The Oregonian. She speaks Spanish, which has clearly helped her tell compelling stories in California on the agriculture labor shortage. In an interview, Washburn’s passion for investigative reporting was clear as she talked about a story she did at The Oregonian on how urine samples in the state were not being tested, letting repeat DUI offenders stay free.
“I’m thrilled to join a newsroom I’ve long admired and a team I’m certain will be producing critical and extensive coverage of gun violence in Missouri,” Washburn said. “This nuanced issue is worthy of dedicated reporting that digs into how gun violence impacts vulnerable communities, why it has become pervasive and what is or isn’t being done to thwart it.”
The Star’s RFA project
RFA is an initiative started in 2017 to train young journalists and place them in newsrooms to help cover underserved regions or important issues.
The reporters are assigned for one year, with the option to renew for a second year. They have an average of three to six years of experience and often return to their home states, according to RFA.
In addition to recruiting journalists, RFA provides them with development opportunities via training and mentoring before and during their assignments in local newsrooms.
As part of this project, The Star will seek the community’s help. A major goal of this grant program is to bring more philanthropy in to support local journalism.
A portion of the reporters’ salaries come from RFA. A portion will come from The Star, and another portion will come from community support.
To contribute to The Star’s Missouri gun violence project, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
RFA, an initiative of the The GroundTruth Project, receives funding from organizations including Facebook, the Google News Initiative, the Knight Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, Dirk and Natasha Ziff, Galloway Family Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, The Tow Foundation, Select Equity Group Foundation, the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, The Steans Family Foundation, Henry M. Kimelman Family Foundation and the Duo Collective.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
