Tackling News Deserts

Lori Montenegro is Noticias Telemundo’s Washington bureau chief, overseeing news coverage from the nation’s capital including White House and domestic and foreign policy reporting. 

One of the most influential journalists in Spanish-language television, Montenegro has more than 40 years of experience in the news industry.

In her role, she oversees the Washington newsgathering operation and coordinates daily political coverage. Montenegro was named bureau chief in 2019 after serving more than 12 years as Noticias Telemundo’s leading political correspondent when she conducted a number of high-profile interviews with world leaders including former U.S. President Barack Obama and former Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto, among others.

Before joining Noticias Telemundo, Montenegro spent three years at Univision as the Washington correspondent for 25 of its affiliates. Between 1991 and 1993, she served as foreign policy correspondent for the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). Montenegro began her career in journalism at a radio station while studying in college. Soon after, she moved to television with a reporting position at WSCV-TV, a local Telemundo news station in Miami.

Montenegro is a recipient of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s Latina Leader Award and the UnidosUS Rubén Salazar Award. She  has also received the First Amendment Clarity Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association, a recognition awarded to a journalist who goes to extraordinary lengths to provide meaning and context to complicated news stories or issues of public importance. Montenegro was named one of 100 outstanding Hispanic journalists in 2001 and 2002.

 In 2023, she was inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) Hall of Fame, an honor given to journalists who have made an exemplary impact in the industry.

Her reporting was recently featured in an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Musuem of American History. The exhibit, called Latinas Report Breaking News, showcased the work of Latina journalists on Spanish-language television and their unwavering commitment to providing news for Latino communities.

Levi Rickert is an award-winning Native American journalist. Rickert is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online and Tribal Business News.

A tribal citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, his tribal name is  Bizontay Jibwaa N’chi-ock (Calm Before the Storm). An author with essays in three different books, his first book Visions of a Better Indian Country: One Potawatomi Editor’s Opinions was published by Indian Country Media in April 2022. Rickert also co-hosts the Hope + Healing podcast in conjunction with the National Indian Health Board.

Terri Rupar is the political editor at The 19th, a nonprofit news site focused on gender, politics and policy. She joined The 19th in January 2021 after more than 17 years at The Washington Post, where she got her start in 2003 after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At The Post, Terri held a number of editing and digital strategy jobs, helped launch news apps, and worked on live coverage. In 2016 and 2020, she took on key roles in award-winning election coverage, editing liveblogs and newsletters, executing special projects, and working with product and technology teams.  

Terri joined The 19th after partnering with the outlet to publish its earliest articles at The Washington Post. She edits a team of reporters whose coverage focuses on questions of representation and rights in our democracy. 

Geraldine Moriba is the senior vice president and chief content officer at theGrio, the largest Black newsroom in the nation covering social justice, socio-economic, lifestyle, politics, and entertainment. In her first two years in this leadership role, Geraldine has expanded theGrio from a single line of business to five revenue and content verticals– a news site, a streaming and mobile app, live events, a podcast network, and a cable network.

Moriba was a Stanford University Brown Institute research scientist and John S. Knight Journalism Fellow. Her research focuses on ways to use machine learning to identify editorial patterns. She is also the host and executive producer of “Sounds Like Hate,” a podcast series funded by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Moriba’s previous production company, Moriba Media, specialized in broadening narrative experiences. She was the Executive Producer of a four-part PBS documentary, “Sinking Cities,” about rising seas in NY, Tokyo, London, and Miami. She was also the Executive Producer of the PBS multi-platform initiative “Chasing the Dream” about poverty and economic opportunity.

Before launching her own media production and consulting business, Moriba held a blended role as an Executive Producer with CNN’s program development team and the Executive Producer of “In America,” an award-winning documentary series exploring American identities. She was also the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion VP for CNN Worldwide. While at NBC News and MSNBC, Moriba served as a Senior Producer with Standards and Practices and an Executive Producer of live broadcasts and news specials. Moriba is the Writer and Co-Director of Until20, an independent documentary about a young athlete diagnosed with a rare cancer and his pursuit of life. 

Her work has earned accolades, including five Emmy Awards, an Alfred I. DuPont Award, two Peabody Awards, the distinguished Princeton University Ferris Professorship of Journalism Fellowship, the Anita Hill Gender Justice Award, two RTNDA-Unity Awards, four New York Film Festival Awards, two NABJ First Place Documentary Awards, and more.

Denise Rolark Barnes is the publisher and second-generation owner of The Washington Informer, succeeding her father, the late Dr. Calvin W. Rolark, who founded the newspaper in 1964.

The Washington Informer is a multi-media organization serving the African American community in the Washington metropolitan area. Denise is also president of Washington Informer Charities, a non-profit organization that promotes 21st-century literacy and journalism through writing competitions, internships, scholarships and other events promoting African American history, culture, and literature.

Rolark Barnes is a past chair of the National Newspaper Publishers Association – the Black Press of America. She serves on the boards of several local non-profit, community and municipal organizations, including the Washington Convention and Sports Authority (Events DC), the DC Martin Luther King Holiday Commission, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) and the Pan African Collective. She is the new president of the Maryland, Delaware, DC Press Association. Rolark Barnes is also a board member of Leadership Greater Washington, as well as an inductee in the D.C. Hall of Fame.

She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Lafayette Barnes. They are the proud parents of two adult sons.