PITTSBURGH— WESA, Pittsburgh’s NPR news station, announced today the appointment of Kate Giammarise as a reporter covering the economic impact of COVID-19 on southwestern Pennsylvania and Laura Tsutsui as producer of The Confluence.
“This year continues to present a ton of news, so we’re really happy to be hiring staff, which will improve our ability to report, broadcast, and publish important journalism for southwestern Pennsylvania,” said WESA News Director Patrick Doyle.
Giammarise has been a reporter for the past 16 years, working for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 2013. She’s covered affordable housing, poverty, human services and inequity for nearly five years; prior to that, she covered the legislature, governor, and state government in Harrisburg for the Post-Gazette. She was part of the Post-Gazette’s Pulitzer Prize winning breaking news coverage of the Tree of Life shooting and has won numerous state and local awards for her reporting.
“I am extremely excited to join the great team of journalists at WESA and to bring important stories to our listeners,” Giammarise said.
Her upcoming coverage of the ways in which the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the economy of the region will be supplemented by data gathered through multiple surveys over the course of a year by the 90.5 WESA/Campos COVID Insights Study. The surveys will track opinions from across the 10-county Western Pennsylvania region, documenting how citizens have been affected by the pandemic, how confident they are in governmental and institutional responses to the crisis, and how well they perceive the economy to be recovering.
She will join the staff at 90.5 WESA on Oct.5, 2020.
Tsutsui has worked as a producer and reporter for Valley Public Radio (KVPR) in Fresno since 2017, including producing a weekly newsmagazine called Valley Edition. Recently, she’s reported on the devastating Creek Fire for KVPR and NPR. She’s worked as a mentor with NPR’s Next Generation Radio program, is a former journalism institute fellow at Politico, and graduated from California State University, Fresno.
“We’re really excited to add Laura to The Confluence team and the WESA newsroom,” Doyle said. “We’re looking forward to her bringing her smarts, energy and fresh perspective to our daily newsmagazine.”
Tsutsui will join WESA on Nov. 16, 2020.
Media Contact:Erin Keane Scott ph: 412.697.2939 email: ekscott@wesa.fm
