By Ken Epstein
Magaly Muñoz recently began a two-year fellowship covering local news for the Oakland Post as a full-time reporter, supported by the California Local News Fellowship.
“As a journalist of color from an immigrant, low-income background, I’ve seen firsthand how little vulnerable communities are covered in the media,” said Muñoz, who is settling into her new job in the Post newsroom in downtown Oakland.
“Throughout my own journey as a journalist, I’ve been determined to elevate the voices of the unheard so that they may one day feel comfortable telling their, often neglected, truth,” said Muñoz.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have helped share these communities’ stories at both the local and national levels over the course of my career and cannot wait to continue to do that for the next two years through this fellowship,” she said.
A graduate of Sacramento State University, Muñoz’s journalism experience includes working for the State Hornet, the university’s student-run newspaper and conducting research and producing projects for “All Things Considered” at National Public Radio. She also was a community reporter for El Timpano, serving Latino and Mayan communities, and contributed to the Sacramento Observer, the area’s African American newspaper.
Muñoz is one of 40 early career journalists who are part of the California Local News Fellowship program, a state-funded initiative designed to strengthen local news reporting in California, with a focus on underserved communities.
The fellowship program places journalism fellows throughout the state in two-year, full-time reporting positions.
“This program directly addresses the crisis in local news across the nation. In California alone, a quarter of news publications ceased operations between 2004 and 2019, as reported by the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media,”…
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