Arizona Daily Star reporter Jasmine Demers will join the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting as a Report For America corps member.
Demers will report on issues related to youth, social services and legislative accountability for KyCIR starting in June. She will replace KyCIR's current corps member, Graham Ambrose, who plans to attend law school in the fall.
Demers currently covers science, health, government and the pandemic in her hometown of Tucson, Arizona. Following months of local coronavirus coverage, including deaths in Arizona nursing homes, Demers received top awards from the Arizona Newspapers Association. The Arizona Press Club has honored her science reporting.
She holds a masterβs degree from the University of Arizona School of Journalism, where she was editor-in-chief of the student-run Daily Wildcat. There, she received the Philip Mangelsdorf Award for Outstanding Newsperson of the Year as well as the Douglas D. Martin Award for Courage and Integrity.
Demers is one of some 300 journalists announced Tuesday as part of the Report For America's 2021 reporting corps. The cohort includes a number of corps members returning for a second or third year in their newsrooms, including WFPL's John Boyle, who covers health and southern Indiana.
Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. It is an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit journalism organization.
The corps members will begin their new assignments in June.
Support KyCIR's Report for America corps member by donating here.