About Me

I'm an investigative reporter, literary journalist, media ethicist and journalism professor at the University of Connecticut, where my research focuses on misinformation and media coverage of mass shootings. My forthcoming book, to be published by Columbia University Press, tells the story of a quarter century shaped by misinformation and mass murder, exploring the impact of news coverage and social media and offering a course for change. 

My articles have been published by major media organizations including The Boston Globe, CNN, Businessweek, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Conversation, The Hartford Courant, High Times, Ms. Magazine, Nieman Reports and National Geographic. I was a national correspondent for Bloomberg News, a political reporter and project writer at The Arizona Republic, and a metro reporter at The Baltimore Sun. I started my career in the DC bureau of People Magazine. I've won several state and regional journalism awards, and I was a national finalist in 2007 for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. 

I was a 2020-21 fellow at the UConn Humanities Institute, and I am a research affiliate of the UConn ARMS Center and the Rockefeller Institute for Government's Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. I serve on the advisory board of the Supporting Mass Shooting Survivors Project, on the board of directors of the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government, and on the Connecticut Committee of the New England First Amendment Coalition. I previously served on the national board of the Journalism & Women's Symposium (JAWS). Before UConn, I held faculty appointments in the journalism schools at Western Kentucky University and Arizona State University.

In addition to journalistic work, I've had creative nonfiction essays and prose poetry published in literary journals including Hippocampus, Creative Nonfiction, The Midnight Oil, Full Grown People, and New Square.

Born and raised in Appalachia, I was the first person in my family to attend college, graduating with honors from the University of Maryland with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism. I later earned my masters of mass communication degree from Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication.
 

At UConn, I teach media law, press history, and writing and reporting classes. My areas of expertise include journalism ethics, media law, the media and misinformation, news coverage of gun violence and mass shootings, and the role of journalists in a democracy. I am available for talks, panel discussions and guest lectures.
 

I'm also a singer and a flutist and play music with my partner, Toby, in the indie Americana Gothic project A Former Friend. 

Literary Agent: Jill Marr of Sandra Djkstra Literary Agency.