The Spokesman-Review hires James Hanlon to cover rural counties through Report for America program

May 10, 2022 Updated Tue., May 10, 2022 at 8:57 p.m.

James Hanlon has been named The Spokesman-Review's latest Report for America corps member. Hanlon will report on rural issues in Eastern Washington and North Idaho. (Courtesy)

By Carolyn Lamberson carolynl@spokesman.com (509) 459-5068

Bio Box

James Hanlon

James Hanlon reports for The Spokesman-Review, covering rural counties in Eastern Washington and the Idaho Panhandle. Previously, Hanlon reported for the Oxford Leader in Oxford, Michigan. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska and Snowflake, Arizona, and he holds bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and film and media studies from Arizona State University. After college, Hanlon spent three years living in a Japanese village of 700 people, teaching English and writing about revitalization projects in the countryside for a local nonprofit. His work has also appeared in Kyoto Journal, Tokyo Cheapo and Asia Matters for America by the East-West Center.

Laurel Demkovich

Now in her third year, Laurel Demkovich reports for The Spokesman-Review based in Spokane, Washington, and covers the Washington Legislature and state government. After graduating from Indiana University in May 2019, Demkovich completed an internship at The Washington Post where she covered cops and courts for the Post’s local desk. Demkovich also completed internships at the Tampa Bay Times and the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts, covering local government, breaking news, and general assignments. While at Indiana University, Demkovich served as managing editor of the school’s student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student. She has won several awards for her writing from the Indiana Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Indiana Collegiate Press Association named her Brook Baker Collegiate Journalist of the Year in 2019. She also won first place in feature writing from The Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

Orion Donovan-Smith

Orion Donovan-Smith is beginning his third year covering Congress and Washington, D.C., for The Spokesman-Review. He worked as the Investigative Reporting Workshop fellow on the documentary “Plastic Wars,” a Frontline investigation into recycling and the plastics industry. Prior to that, he was an intern and later a part-time producer at the NPR program “1A” in 2019, while finishing a master’s degree in journalism from American University. Earlier in the program, he worked with the investigative team and as a general assignment reporter at The Washington Post, covering immigration. Before turning to journalism, he worked on international development programs in Central Africa. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington.

The Spokesman-Review is proud to introduce James Hanlon as our new Report for America corps member.

Beginning next month, Hanlon will join the news team to report on issues of importance to rural Eastern Washington and North Idaho. Hanlon previously reported for the Oxford Leader in Oxford, Michigan, and his work has appeared in the Kyoto Journal; Tokyo Cheapo, a traveler’s guide to Tokyo; and the East-West Center’s Asia Matters for America.

“Telling the stories that need to be told that aren’t being told is one of the best traits of a good local newspaper. With each newsroom position we’ve received through Report For America, that is exactly what we have been able to do: tell the untold stories,” Spokesman-Review Editor Rob Curley said. “What makes this new position so exciting for us is that now we can focus more on finding stories in the counties around us that need to be found.”

Hanlon’s beat will be geographically large and topically deep. He will cover breaking news and features and investigative stories in counties such as Stevens, Pend Oreille, Ferry, Whitman, Bonner and Boundary.

Hanlon is The Spokesman-Review’s fourth Report for America corps member, and will join third-year government reporters Laurel Demkovich, based in Olympia, and Orion Donovan-Smith, our Washington, D.C., correspondent.

“When you look at James’ background and the kinds of stories he’s been able to tell, you know he’s going to be a great fit in this new role,” Curley said. “He will be there for the big breaking stories and the important looks at local government, but it’s all of the other interesting things and people in these areas that really make this role such a great fit with our newspaper and its mission.”

This year, the Report for America reporting corps will number 300 journalists, which includes those returning for their second and third years. They join more than 200 local news operations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and Guam.

“Report for America provides a unique opportunity for journalists to pursue meaningful, local beat reporting that sadly is missing from many of today’s newsrooms,” said Earl Johnson, director of admissions at Report for America, in a news release. “Together, our emerging and experienced corps members will produce tens of thousands of articles on critically undercovered topics – schools, government, healthcare, the environment, communities of color and more.”

Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities. It is an initiative of the GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit journalism organization.

Rural coverage is a particular area of emphasis for Report for America this year. Kim Kleman, senior vice president of Report for America, told The Spokesman-Review in December that a quarter of newsrooms supported by the organization in 2022-23 will be in rural areas or will have rural beats.

Report for America pays for half of a reporter’s salary the first year and a smaller percentage in the second year. The program sometimes provides funding in a third year. The goal is for a news organization to fund the position on its own after Report for America’s financial support ends.

The reporting of Hanlon, Demkovich and Donovan-Smith is made possible by generous donations from community members. You can support their reporting by visiting spokesman.com/thanks to subscribe or make a donation.