Meet the Newsroom

Santa Fe Reporter's newest staff writer joins courtesy of national grant and community fundraising

Full-time staff writers at Santa Fe's alt-weekly do it all—they cover stories from public meetings and from public records as well connect the community through taking photographs, posting to social media and sleuthing out what's happening and why.

Next month, the SFR newsroom grows from two staff writers to three with the addition of a new grant-funded reporting position.

Katherine Lewin joins the staff on June 3 as a Report for America fellow. Her work over the next year will focus on issues that affect Santa Fe's Southside, and on the people and organizations that make this region of the city tick.

Lewin, a Florida native, earned a Pulitzer Center for Crisis reporting internship last year that sent her the island of Cuba to learn about its housing challenges in partnership with a journalist at USA Today. Other previous journalism experience for the 2018 Flagler College graduate includes a stint for the news website Miami News Today.

"I really care and want to do good objective reporting," says Lewin, who has been studying up on life in Santa Fe and is anxious to arrive at her new home later this month.

A 25-year-old Spanish speaker who also has worked in Guatemala, she also has experience covering reporting on refugee issues. Her assignments for the Southside will include business, health care, education and other topics.

"I really want to come prepared and do as much as I can to understand the history of that part of the city so that in my stories I can contextualize what I'm writing about," she says.

Lewin won't just be writing, either. She's planning to report several produced radio segments that will publish on SFR's website as podcasts. Reach her with story ideas at katherine@sfreporter.com.

Report for America is an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit media organization that provides training and supports teams of emerging journalists around the world. SFR is in the midst of crowdfunding campaign to help match the grant to pay for Lewin's position.

She'll join Leah Cantor and Will Costello, SFR's current news staff writers.

Cantor grew up in Santa Fe and has returned to the city after graduating from Reed College in 2017. After joining the SFR newsroom as an intern, she became a full-time staff writer in March. Among other reporting, Cantor concentrates on the environment and education.

Costello also arrived the City Different this spring, fresh from journalism school at the University of Northern Colorado. Before that, he interned at The Hill in Washington, DC, and wrote at the Johnstown Breeze. He covers City Hall, cannabis, housing and more.

Letters to the Editor

Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

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