Meet Our 2024 Microgrant Awardees!
Four individuals have been awarded Reporting on Addiction’s first-ever microgrants to support investigative, solutions-focused reporting on substance or behavioral addiction, treatment and recovery.
Three professional journalists will receive $750, and one student will receive $500 to create stories expanding their newsrooms’ ability to deepen their coverage in this critical area. This year’s professional recipients are Emily Bader of The Maine Monitor, Kylie Cameron of KMUW and Tynesha McCullers of The Nubian Message and WKNC. This year’s student recipient is Francia Garcia Hernandez whose work will be published with Book Club Chicago. Funds will support stories created in any medium – photo, digital, audio, video or other – in the hope of expanding newsrooms’ ability to deepen their coverage in this critical area.
The journalists’ applications were reviewed by four external judges that represent the three areas of focus in Reporting on Addictions’ mission: journalists, journalism educators, and experts through experience and training. This year’s judges included Dr. Lyn O'Connell of Marshall University, Heather Rodriguez of Mental Health America Indiana and the Indiana Recovery Network, Steven Potter of PBS Wisconsin, and Alexis Allison of Tarrant County College and a Solutions Journalism Network 2022 Complicating the Narrative Fellow.
Funding for these grants is provided by the Solutions Journalism Network’s Complicating the Narrative Fellowship. As a 2023 CTN fellow, Reporting on Addiction’s Co-director Ashton Marra has committed to using the fellowship resources to support these microgrants.
Reporting on Addiction has spent the past three years working to support journalists in the exploration of addiction, treatment and recovery in our communities, with a focus on assisting newsrooms in telling stories that investigate the solutions to this problem – or lack thereof – in our communities.
Reporting on Addiction is dedicated to supporting journalists in reporting on addiction-related topics, focusing on investigating solutions to this complex issue. Through initiatives such as microgrants and training, we aim to empower journalists to shed light on addiction and its impact on communities across the nation.
2024 Microgrant Awardees
Emily Bader is a health care and general assignment reporter for The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative outlet. Previously, she covered health for the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine, where she was a USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Data Fellow. Her work has been recognized by the Maine Press Association, the New England Newspaper & Press Association and the Maine Public Health Association.
Kylie Cameron is a reporter for KMUW, Wichita's NPR affiliate, where she covers substance use, addiction and Wichita City Hall. Cameron also has experience working at a local TV station and was previously editor-in-chief of The Sunflower, Wichita State's student newspaper. Cameron is also a person in recovery from her chaotic relationship with substances and is soon to celebrate one and a half years of sobriety.
Tynesha McCullers is a Provost Fellow and Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media at North Carolina State University. She serves as a correspondent for the Nubian Message, an editor at the Digital Ethnic Futures Lab at Dartmouth College, and a fellow and writer at the Black Communication & Technology Lab at the University of Maryland-College Park. As an educator and advocate with expertise in social justice education and experience in harm reduction, McCullers prioritizes trauma-informed care when working with communities facing discrimination and stigmatization. In 2023, she was named an inaugural James Patterson Writer Education Scholar honoring her dedication to teaching writing and critical media literacy. McCullers holds an M.Ed. in Higher Education & Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Vermont and a B.S. in Human Development & Family Studies from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Francia Garcia-Hernandez is a journalist and communications strategist from Mexico City. She is a local news reporter covering Chicago communities, immigrant communities, arts and culture, local government and more. She also manages communications for the media literacy nonprofit the Media Education Lab. Hernandez holds a master's in Civic Media from Columbia College Chicago and a B.A. in Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development Management from Universidad Anahuac Mexico Norte. She has over five years of experience managing communications and sustainability programs in the businesses and nonprofit sectors in Mexico and the U.S.
2024 Microgrant Judges
Alexis Allison is an independent journalist and teacher in north Texas. She has a master's in journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism and bakes at a pastry shop part-time. She's taught hundreds of students from California to Iraq and hopes her reporting is likewise educational. Alexis was a 2022 Solutions Journalism Network Complicating the Narrative Fellow.
Dr. Lyn O’Connell is a professional in the field of mental health and substance use in Huntington, WV. As the associate director for the Division of Addiction Sciences and assistant faculty in the Department of Family Medicine, she plays a pivotal role in addressing the impact of substance use on individuals, families, and the community. Dr. O'Connell is a licensed Independent Marriage and Family Therapist (IMFT) in the state of Ohio and West Virginia.
Steven Potter has been a reporter and producer at newspapers, magazines, online news outlets and for public radio. He now reports for PBS Wisconsin where he covers everything from education and politics to the economy and environmental issues. He is an active member of his local recovery community and has been sober for several years.
Heather Rodriguez is Vice President of Mental Health America of Indiana Recovery Advocacy and Programs, Director of the Indiana Recovery Network, and Interim Director of Indiana Addictions Issues Coalition. Rodriguez helped create the Indiana Recovery Network which serves as Indiana’s recovery resource locator and oversees the statewide Regional Recovery Hub program which consists of 20 organizations providing free peer recovery support services to all 92 Indiana counties. Rodriguez is a person in sustained recovery and believes that recovery supports are an integral part of an individual's journey to overcome challenges associated with substance use and or mental health concerns and that individuals have a right to choose which pathway of recovery works best for them.