About the Institute Fellows for 2012
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About the Institute Fellows for 2012 ... LYNN ARDITI LYNN ARDITI is a reporter for The Providence Journal who has written about the economy, the housing crisis, prostitution, and, most recently, child welfare. During her years on the business staff, she wrote extensively about homeowners who were duped into signing high-rate mortgages and the middlemen who made their living evicting tenants and clearing out the properties after the banks foreclosed. More recently, she has focused on the abuses and failures of the state’s child welfare system. Her story about magistrates who locked up juveniles for truancy offense (“Truants Behind Bars”) won first place for investigate reporting from the New England Associated Press News Executives Association, 2011. Before coming to the Journal in 1989, she worked as a staff writer at the Center for Investigative Reporting in Washington, D.C., where she developed a story for “60 Minutes” about the abuses of strip mining companies, and as a reporter at the Holyoke Transcript- Telegram in Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio and lives in Rhode Island with her husband and their two teenage sons. SHAWN BEALS ShawN BEALS is 27 and a lifelong Connecticut resident. He graduated from Manchester High School in 2003 and from UConn in 2007. He started out in college as an engineering major, but quickly found out that the heavy workload of math and science courses was not for him. He worked at the Journal Inquirer for a few months in 2008 after graduating, then moved to the Hartford Courant in April of 2008. He has held a few town beats in four years at the Courant and has been covering the city of Middletown for the last two years. Covering Middletown, he has written about the bitter disputes between city hall and the school district, the years-long quest to find a permanent police chief, and the renaissance of the North End of Main Street. Beals enjoys cycling and plays soccer on the weekends. He likes to travel and in the last few years he has visited Hong Kong, Rome, Barcelona, and London. He hopes to do more traveling in the United States in the next few years. BEAU BERMAN BEAU BERMAN is an award-winning investigative journalist with almost a decade of experience digging for facts. Berman’s investigations have yielded real results, tracking down no-show contractors, helping pass life-saving fire safety legislation, and shedding light on the struggles of immigrants. Now a Connecticut resident, Berman came from Pittsburgh by way of Texas. While in the Lone Star state, he was honored with the Edward R. Murrow Award for Television Investigative Journalism from the Radio Television Digital News Association. Berman has won more than ten awards from the Texas Associated Press Broadcasters, including recognition for his investigative reports and overall reporting. He will spend Fall 2012 in Germany as an RIAS Berlin Komission Fellow and is also a fluent Spanish speaker. NEW ENGLAND FIRST AMENDMENT INSTITUTE FOI 2012 About ... ALEX BLOOM ALEX BLOOM is a reporter at The Enterprise, a 22,000-circulation daily newspaper in Brockton, Mass., known as the City of Champions. At the newspaper, Bloom covers Brockton local government, the school system, and the area’s three hospitals in a city about 25 miles south of Boston. He started at The Enterprise in February and is still impressed by how so many people look up to boxing great and hometown hero Rocky Marciano. Before joining The Enterprise, Bloom spent about 18 months at The Eagle-Tribune where he handled town government and some regional stories in the news-hungry Merrimack Valley just north of Boston. He participated in coverage of Lawrence’s controversial Dominican Mayor William Lantigua, who has faced multiple grand jury investigations. A native of suburban Philadelphia, Bloom graduated from Tufts University and moved on to Scottsdale, Ariz., to cover education at The Arizona Republic. He enjoyed the crazy state and its desert, even though he feels a dry heat is just as insufferable as high humidity. Bloom returned to Massachusetts after too much time away from the home of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. He’s a big fan of the Philadelphia Phillies and one of the team’s biggest critics. GEORGE BRENNAN GEORGE BRENNAN is the Upper Cape chief for the Cape Cod Times, a regional daily newspaper covering the Cape and Islands. His responsibilities include overseeing coverage of the Upper Cape’s four towns, as well as the Massachusetts Military Reservation. His beats include the military, congressional politics, and Massachusetts casinos, with particular emphasis on the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s pursuit of a tribal casino in Taunton. He has also worked on a variety of investigative stories for the Times, which include exposing a tribe leader’s lies about his military record, uncovering a Falmouth family’s ties to several unsolved crimes, and detailing a spate of police officials involved in off-duty incidents involving alcohol and drug abuse on the Cape and Islands. Brennan started his career with MPG Newspapers in Plymouth and rose through the ranks from reporter to community editor to managing editor of the group’s 10 weekly newspapers. In 2003, he moved to Falmouth with his wife, Corinne, and their two children, Josephine and Tommy. MAGGIE CASSIDY MAGGIE CASSIDY is a staff writer at the Valley News, a 16,000-circulation daily based in West Lebanon, N.H. Her primary responsibility is covering Hartford, Vt., which includes the village of White River Junction and is one of the newspaper’s key municipal beats. She also reports breaking news and long-term stories from throughout the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire. Recent stories include reporting on the Hartford Selectboard’s infighting over the use of Google Docs to make changes to the board’s official minutes and whether that violates Vermont’s open meeting law. She continues to cover the dispute between the selectboard and residents of the village of West Hartford over the pace, process, and cost of rebuilding the village library, which was devastated by Tropical Storm Irene. Prior to joining the Valley News staff in January, she spent six months working for the only newspaper on the tiny Hawaiian island of Molokai, where she reported on plans to build a utility-scale wind farm and residents’ fiery resistance. While attending Northeastern University in Boston, she helped establish a nonprofit publishing company to print the student newspaper independently of the university in 2008. She completed two full-time internships at The Boston Globe, in its Sports and now- defunct City Weekly sections. She’s a native of Framingham, Mass. Her reporting interests include open government, crime, grief, agriculture, and business. NEW ENGLAND FIRST AMENDMENT INSTITUTE FOI 2012 About ... JENNIFER HERSEY CLEVELAND JENNIFER HERSEY CLEVELAND is a staff writer for the Orleans County Record and Caledonian-Record in northeast Vermont. She covers courts, education, fish and game, politics, energy, and health care issues and photographs adorable children and animals at venues such as the county fair. She began her career as co-editor of the weekly Chronicle in Barton, Vt., in 1999. She has also written for the Feminist Times in mid-coast Maine, Echoes magazine in Caribou, Maine, and the Newport (Vt.) Daily Express. She earned a first place award for photography from the New England Press Association in 2006. She earned a bachelor of arts in mass communications from the University of Maine at Orono with a minor in women’s studies. She lives in Barton with her husband, Kirk. DAN D’AmBROSIO DAN D’AMBROSIO is the business reporter for the Burlington Free Press in Burlington, Vt. He graduated from the University of Montana in 2003 with a master’s degree in journalism and was a national intern for The Associated Press before working for daily papers in Durango, Colo., and Waterbury, Conn., and an alternative weekly in Hartford, Conn. IAN DONNIS IAN DONNIS has been the political reporter for Rhode Island Public Radio, Rhode Island’s NPR member station, since 2009. His job includes reporting features, covering spot news, hosting the station’s weekly “Political Roundtable,” contributing to the station’s On Politics blog, and tweeting. Donnis has been a regular panelist since 2003 on “Newsmakers,” the Sunday morning public affairs program of WPRI/WNAC-TV. A graduate of Boston University, he has contributed to National Public Radio and to the op- ed sections of The Boston Globe and Newsday. Donnis was previously the news editor of the Providence Phoenix, an alternative newsweekly owned by the Boston-based Phoenix Media Communications Group, where he reported on Rhode Island politics and media. His reporting has been recognized by The Associated Press, New England Press Association, Rhode Island Press Association, and Rhode Island for Community & Justice. Donnis lives in Rumford, R.I., with his wife, Kathleen Lappin, and their Great Dane, Jackson. NEW ENGLAND FIRST AMENDMENT INSTITUTE FOI 2012 About ... DAVE EISENSTADTER Dave EISENSTADTER is a reporter for Gatehouse Media/Wickedlocal.com, covering Dedham, Mass. He graduated from Bard College in 2005 and got his first staff writing job two years later with the twice-weekly Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in Peterborough, N.H. During his time with that paper, Eisenstadter wrote his first book, “The Weight of the Ice,” about the 2008 ice storm that left millions of people across five states with no power, some for weeks. In 2010, the New Hampshire Press Association named him non- daily columnist of the year. Starting that year, he got a job with his hometown newspaper, The Keene (N.H.) Sentinel. Eisenstadter has worked for Wicked Local for the past year.