As a journalist and educator, I gravitate toward projects that ask hard questions about how news is made and how it shapes the communities we serve. My reporting and long-form work often sit at the intersection of media criticism, lived experience and public service, whether I am on the road visiting newsrooms or revisiting the emotional landscape of a deadly tornado outbreak.

Follow My Lede grew out of a yearlong, 10,000-mile road trip across the United States to chronicle journalism in real time. I visited newsrooms large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, urban and rural, watching journalists cover breaking news while I documented them, their challenges and their creativity. The result is a layered look at how reporters, editors and photographers do their jobs under intense pressure, and why understanding their process matters for anyone who cares about democracy.

My ongoing work around the tornado super outbreak of April 27, 2011, explores how people remember, grieve and rebuild after disaster. For years I have returned to that day in essays and journalism, tracing not only the physical destruction but also the mental health issues it left in its wake, in Alabama and beyond. These pieces blend narrative reporting with personal reflection to honor the lives changed by the storms and to examine what it means to live under a sky that can turn dangerous in an instant.

Together, these projects reflect my commitment to storytelling that is both deeply reported and unafraid of feeling. Whether I am mapping newsrooms across America or walking through tornado-scarred communities, I am always asking the same questions: Who gets to tell the story, whose voices are missing, and how can journalism do better by the people it serves?