SPJ: Phoenix, Arizona Chapter

Robert Anglen is an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic/azcentral, where he has worked since 2003. His award-winning stories have prompted government reforms, state and federal probes and criminal convictions. He specializes in white-collar fraud and complex financial schemes (investigating, not committing). He has written about the Mafia and organized crime, international charity scams and abuses within the probate court system. His stories led to the 2022 resignation of the Maricopa County attorney. He was the first reporter in the country to link deaths to Taser stun guns. On Sept. 11, 2001, he was only blocks away from the World Trade Center collapse and wrote first-person accounts from Ground Zero. He is the father of triplets.

Michelle Beaver is founder and director of News Literacy for Arizona, a free program that brings a 50-minute workshop on news literacy to high schools, libraries and community centers. She’s also director of the Arizona chapter of PEN America, is a teaching artist for ASU’s Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and recently completed her second health book for the Dummies franchise. Michelle ghost-wrote a New York Times best-selling health book, taught journalism at ASU and SCC, and has reported full time for the Associated Press and Bay Area News Group. She freelances extensively.

Greg Burton is executive editor of The Arizona Republic/azcentral and a regional editor for USA TODAY in the West, leading newsrooms in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, California and Arizona. He began his career at the Lewiston Morning Tribune and then the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, writing about the environment during a period of upheaval over logging and mining, spotted owl protections and wilderness designations for old-growth forests and wild and scenic rivers. In 1997, he joined the Salt Lake Tribune. As a reporter and editor in Utah, he exposed the practice of forced incest and child abuse within polygamous clans and led projects on the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park and the battle over nuclear-waste storage at Yucca Mountain. Before the 2002 Winter Olympics, he uncovered secret gifts to the International Olympic Committee and helped chronicle the emergence of Mitt Romney as a national figure in the aftermath of the Olympic bribery scandal. In Arizona, Burton’s newsroom is a two-time Pulitzer finalist and Pulitzer winner in 2018 for The Wall, a landmark multimedia project that explores the border and former President Trump’s promise to build “a great wall.”

With 20+ years of experience in digital, tech, publishing and journalism, Iain Christie has been with the Google News Initiative for four years. He trains across journalism and audience/revenue covering the US and Canada.

Chelsea Curtis (Diné) is a reporter at Arizona Luminaria uncovering data and stories a bout Missing and Murdered Indigenous People in Arizona. Her work to launch a first-of-its-kind MMIP database was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists and the Data-Driven Reporting Project. Chelsea previously covered criminal justice topics and breaking news as a reporter at The Arizona Republic/azcentral and a wide range of community news at Today’s News-Herald (Lake Havasu City) and the Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff). She is a member of the Indigenous Journalists Association.

Joseph Darius Jaafari is the founder and editor in chief of LOOKOUT News.

Jeff Julander began his financial services career after many years of managing Foot Locker retail stores in and around the Phoenix metropolitan area. He enjoyed working with customers but wanted a relationship-based career where he could help generations of families plan their financial futures. He partnered with Adam Kaplan in 1999 and has never looked back. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona, where he played collegiate volleyball. He has continued his support of the sport by refereeing both high school and college volleyball.

Adam Kaplan began his career in the financial services industry back in 1993 after careers as a sports journalist, behind-the-scenes technical support for ESPN TV, curator of his own sports shows on cable, as a grip in the movie industry, and videographer for ASU Football games, his alma mater.  He left those careers behind to find something more rewarding for himself while making an impact in as many lives as possible.

Cody Lillich joined Arizona’s Family Investigates in January 2022 and is the team’s senior investigative producer. He has worked on investigations that exposed train theft rings in rural Arizona with international ties and used public records to show how large investors were buying rental properties in Arizona at a time when rents were skyrocketing. Before Arizona, Cody was an investigative producer for WVUE-TV in New Orleans where he worked alongside the station’s chief investigative reporter Lee Zurik. During his time in New Orleans, Cody was part of an investigative team honored with multiple regional Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Awards. The team’s ‘Inspecting the Inspectors’ investigation looked into the missteps by city inspectors before the deadly 2019 collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel. The reports exposed that three city inspectors signed off on building inspections, while GPS coordinates on their city vehicles show they were never at the site on the dates in question. The team’s series of reports was honored with the 2021 National Edward R. Murrow Award for Large Market Television Investigative Reporting and nominated for a national Emmy award. Cody is a Texas native and previously worked at stations in Dallas, Bryan/College Station and Tyler, Texas.

Cheyanne Mumphrey reports on wellness trends and topics for The Associated Press.

Dianna Náñez is Arizona Luminaria’s Executive Editor and co-founder. She is an investigative journalist, narrative writer/editor and storytelling coach whose story of Indigenous and borderlands communities was part of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning Arizona Republic/azcentral team coverage. She served as a board member for NAHJ and is a member of the 2017 cohort of ASNE’s Emerging Leaders Institute.

Camryn Sanchez is a senior field correspondent at KJZZ covering everything to do with state politics. Previously, she worked at the Arizona Capitol Times covering the state Legislature, with a focus on the Arizona Senate and at The Arizona Republic/azcentral as a Pulliam Fellow covering the city of Phoenix before entering the state politics reporting arena. Sanchez studied journalism at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. In college, she interned at the East Bay Express in Oakland, ELLE magazine in New York, and the Yonkers Times in Yonkers, New York. Sanchez was given the Valley of the Sun chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists’ Presidential Award for her work investigating a state senator’s residency, after the senator in question filed an injunction against Sanchez, which was struck down in court.

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez is a staff writer at The Atlantic and is based in Phoenix, Arizona. She has a long track record of covering attacks on democratic institutions, election administration, legislative and legal battles over voting rules and access to the polls, and Arizona politics. She previously covered national, state and local politics for The Arizona Republic.

Lisa Simpson is senior vice president, programs and advocacy, for the Arizona Media Association and Arizona Local News Foundation.

Shawn White is publisher, CEO and Winslow reporter of the Painted Desert Tribune in Winslow, Arizona. He describes himself as “a 25-year-old trying to save a 115-year-old newspaper.