7 things newsroom managers can learn from beekeeping
I used to keep honeybees. There are some overlaps between beekeeping and managing a newsroom. Let’s just hope no reporters get squished.
Published on Poynter.org in January, 2024. Presented at Public Media Journalists Association Conference in June, 2025.
In Georgia auction, farmers place bids to use less water
After decades of legal battles over water in the Southeast, a project with south Georgia farmers focuses on collaboration, communication and some experimentation.
In my time as a reporter in Atlanta, the fights over water between Georgia, Florida and Alabama were some of the most complicated, important and seemingly unending things I covered. It was rewarding, as I transitioned to editing, to get to report on something more solutions-focused as some of the worst of the legal battles had resolved, spending time with sources I’d developed trust and respect with over many years of reporting. Aired on WABE in August, 2023.
Dangerous heat and high school football: How Georgia started protecting student athletes
Between 1980 and 2009, nearly 60 football players around the country died from heat-related illnesses. Most of them were in high school. Georgia was one of the worst states, leading the country in high school football player heat-related deaths.
Here’s how Georgia turned things around and became a model for other states.
Aired on WABE, NPR and Here and Now in August, 2022 and won an award for sports reporting, a goal I had not thought to put on my environment reporting achievement list.
In The Southeast, Many People Move To Fire-Prone Areas, But Few Know The Risk
2016 was a terrible fire season across the Southeast, including a wildfire that killed more than a dozen people in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Fires in North Georgia blanketed mountain towns in smoke. That fall is a reminder that the West is not the only region in the U.S. threatened by wildfire.
Aired on WABE and NPR July, 2021 and the reporting was featured on NPR’s podcasts Up First and Consider This. Interactive project published on NPR.org in August, 2021.
Southeastern pocket gophers glow, but no one knows why
They’re secretive. They’re ferocious. They look like potatoes. Now, a scientist has discovered they glow under black light. They’re Southeastern pocket gophers.
Aired on WABE in September, 2021 and Here and Now in November, 2021.
Amid Debates About Memorials, Advocates Push To Remember Atlanta’s Forced Laborers
At a time when people are reckoning – again – with the monuments that have been built to tell the nation’s story, some are pushing for a memorial to be built at the former site of a brick factory where convict laborers were forced to work under brutal conditions.
Aired on WABE and Here and Now, and published on NPR.org, August, 2020. This reporting was cited in the City of Atlanta’s ultimately successful effort to block development.
‘Tidal Wave’ Of Power Shut-Offs Looms As Nation Grapples With Heat
Dozens of states and utilities around the country suspended disconnections early in the pandemic, ensuring that even as businesses closed and millions of Americans lost their jobs, people would still be able to keep their lights on regardless of their ability to pay.
Now, many of those power shut-off moratoriums are expiring, including Georgia Power’s, which ended on July 15. And this comes as Americans who are still struggling face the end of another lifeline: supplemental unemployment benefits that are set to lapse.
Aired on WABE and NPR July, 2020.
This Has Been A Record-Breaking Summer For Georgia’s Sea Turtles
Decades of conservation work on loggerhead turtles in the Southeast have made a difference for the threatened, long-lived, somewhat mysterious species.
Aired on WABE and on NPR July, 2019.
Atlanta, Southern Company Make Climate Promises. The Challenge Is Making Them Happen
In Atlanta, utility customers – including the city – don’t choose where their energy comes from. Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, makes that decision. And Georgia Power isn’t considering the city’s – or its own parent company’s – carbon goals as it develops its long-range plans.
Aired on WABE and published on NPR.org in May, 2019.
Molly Samuel 