WASHINGTON – States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, today announces the 2025 class of Capital Reporting Fellows, a cohort of three early-career journalists who will work over the summer in newsrooms across the country. 

The 2025 fellows bring a breadth of experience to States Newsroom, with backgrounds in election security, bilingual reporting and social media. Each has been assigned to work on the ground with a States Newsroom outlet, where they will begin in May.

“Today’s young journalists, especially those from historically underrepresented backgrounds, often have few opportunities to cover the government decisions that affect their communities,” Mika’il Petin, equity, inclusion and strategic initiatives director, said. “With this fellowship, States Newsroom is determined to change that.” 

The 2025 Capital Reporting Fellows:

• Delilah Brumer, Colorado Newsline. Brumer is a bilingual journalist and student at Los Angeles Pierce College. She previously served as editor-in-chief of her college’s student-run weekly newspaper, The Roundup. Her reporting has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CalMatters and other local news outlets across her home state of California. 
• Morgan Leason, New Jersey Monitor. Leason is on track to graduate this spring from the University of Maryland, with degrees in journalism and public policy. A Dean’s Merit Scholar, a College Park Media Scholar and Academic Honors award recipient, Leason served as editor-in-chief of the campus publication Stories Beneath the Shell. She also worked for the Associated Press on its Election Tabulations Team. Leason has worked in numerous professional newsrooms, including recently as the Election Security and Politics Reporter at Capital News Service, based in Annapolis, Maryland.
• Andrea Tinker, Alabama Reflector.  Tinker is on track to graduate this spring from The University of Alabama with a bachelor’s in news media and a minor in African American studies. Tinker is an Alabama native, and during her time at The University of Alabama, she interned at Alabama Public Radio in both their news and digital coordination teams, worked at Nineteen Fifty-Six Magazine, where she served as Assistant Writing Editor, served as the Director of Success, Resources, and Wellness for the College of Communication & Information Sciences ambassadors, and worked as a social media ambassador for The College of Communication & Information Sciences. 

About the Capital Reporting Fellowship:

The Capital Reporting Fellowship is a summer program that places rising college seniors and recent college graduates in full-time journalism roles in our newsrooms 

across the country. Since its launch in 2022, eight journalists have completed a Capital Reporting Fellowship. The program is fully funded by States Newsroom.

Learn more here.

Media availability: Contact Lara Weber, communications director, [email protected] or 312-952-0788

ABOUT STATES NEWSROOM

States Newsroom is the nation’s largest nonprofit state-focused news organization. We shine a light on policy and politics in state capitals around the nation and we provide that coverage for free, no pop-ups, paywalls or ads. In an era of rampant disinformation and news deserts, we provide nonpartisan coverage of the state issues that most affect people’s daily lives.

Leading studies cite States Newsroom as key to filling the void in coverage left by staffing cuts at legacy media outlets. According to one study, the overall percentage of reporters working for nonprofit newsrooms in the statehouse press corps has more than tripled since 2014 and now makes up the largest portion of statehouse reporters in 10 states and the second largest in 17 states.

States Newsroom runs — or partners with — news outlets in all 50 state capitals.

We fully fund newsrooms in 39 states, each with its own website. They are:

Alabama Reflector – alabamareflector.com

Alaska Beacon – alaskabeacon.com

Arizona Mirror – azmirror.com

Arkansas Advocate – arkansasadvocate.com

Colorado Newsline – coloradonewsline.com

Florida Phoenix – floridaphoenix.com

Georgia Recorder – georgiarecorder.com

Idaho Capital Sun – idahocapitalsun.com

Indiana Capital Chronicle – indianacapitalchronicle.com

Iowa Capital Dispatch – iowacapitaldispatch.com

Kansas Reflector – kansasreflector.com

Kentucky Lantern – kentuckylantern.com

Louisiana Illuminator – lailluminator.com

Maine Morning Star – mainemorningstar.com

Maryland Matters – marylandmatters.org

Michigan Advance – michiganadvance.com

Minnesota Reformer – minnesotareformer.com

Missouri Independent – missouriindependent.com

Daily Montanan – dailymontanan.com

Nebraska Examiner – nebraskaexaminer.com

Nevada Current – nevadacurrent.com

New Hampshire Bulletin – newhampshirebulletin.com

New Jersey Monitor – newjerseymonitor.com

Source New Mexico – sourcenm.com

NC Newsline – ncnewsline.com

North Dakota Monitor – northdakotamonitor.com

Ohio Capital Journal – ohiocapitaljournal.com

Oklahoma Voice – oklahomavoice.com

Oregon Capital Chronicle – oregoncapitalchronicle.com

Pennsylvania Capital-Star – penncapital-star.com

Rhode Island Current – rhodeislandcurrent.com

South Carolina Daily Gazette – scdailygazette.com

South Dakota Searchlight – southdakotasearchlight.com

Stateline – stateline.org

Tennessee Lookout – tennesseelookout.com

Utah News Dispatch – utahnewsdispatch.com

Virginia Mercury – virginiamercury.com

Washington State Standard – washingtonstatestandard.com

West Virginia Watch – westvirginiawatch.com

Wisconsin Examiner – wisconsinexaminer.com

States Newsroom also has content-sharing agreements with 11 leading nonprofit newsrooms: CalMatters (California), Connecticut Mirror, Spotlight Delaware, Honolulu Civil Beat, Capitol News Illinois, CommonWealth Beacon (Massachusetts), Mississippi Today, New York Focus, The Texas Tribune, VTDigger (Vermont), and WyoFile (Wyoming).