We have some exciting news to announce: Chalkbeat Detroit is expanding!
Just a year after formally launching in Detroit, we are adding another reporter and exploring new ways to cover education and serve our readers in the city.
Starting today, Kimberly Hayes Taylor will join our team as a senior reporter. Kim is a veteran journalist who spent eight years covering health and other topics at The Detroit News. She served as the editor of BLAC magazine and has written for MSNBC, TODAY, Essence, Ebony and other local and national publications. Her recent articles have told the stories of anxious immigrants in Southwest Detroit, and of reeling sexual assault survivors who are coping as long-lost rape kits are beginning to be tested. Kim has grand plans for the stories she’ll tell at Chalkbeat.
Kim joins Amanda Rahn, a recent Wayne State University grad, who is with us for a three-month reporting fellowship that began in December. Since arriving late last year, Amanda has been writing several stories a week including pieces on school names, teacher employment policies and early childhood literacy.
The rest of us here at Chalkbeat Detroit are also taking on new responsibilities in an effort to make our journalism even stronger. Julie Topping, who has been the editor of our Detroit and Indiana bureaus since coming to work for Chalkbeat last year will now be a full-time story editor. Julie will focus on turning everything we write into well-organized, thoughtful and well-reported stories that ask the right questions to serve readers best.
I will be the new Detroit Bureau Chief, overseeing our local reporting team and continuing to write as often as I can.
We will continue to focus on the story we care most about, the education of low-income students and families who stand the most to gain from better schools. As we told you when we first launched, we will continue to show up, day in and day out, covering both the political fireworks and staying for the fallout.
For readers, this means that you’ll get more — more news, more analysis, more updates on what’s happening in preschools, high schools, charter schools and every other kind of classroom in the city. It also means we need to hear more from you. Please, tell us what kinds of stories we should be writing. Suggest schools we should be visiting. And, as always, please let us know how we’re doing — by email, Facebook or Twitter. Thanks for reading!
— Erin Einhorn, Chalkbeat Detroit Bureau Chief