Meet Partner Journalists
Laura Berman is an award-winning Detroit-based journalist and writer. She was a featured columnist at the Detroit News for almost 30 years, writing and reporting from Detroit and destinations as far-flung as Bosnia, Moscow, and London. At the Detroit Free Press, where she began her career, Laura covered politics, business, and worked as a Sunday Magazine writer. Since retiring from the Detroit News in 2016, Laura has developed expertise as a professional writing coach, working through the Detroit Writing Room and the University of Michigan. Laura’s commentary and feature writing have appeared in many national publications, including full-length profiles of Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert in Fortune and of Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne for Time. Her journalism awards include a National Headliner Award for column writing, best Michigan columnist awards from AP and UPI, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Detroit chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, the professional journalism society. Her recent work includes “Whistle-blower: How doctor uncovered nightmare and “After RGB’s death, a turning point for women.”
Anna Clark is a ProPublica journalist who lives in Detroit. She is the author of The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy, which won the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism and the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award. Anna’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Elle, the New Republic, Politico, and other publications. She edited A Detroit Anthology, a Michigan Notable Book, and is a contributing editor at Waxwing Literary Journal. She is a nonfiction faculty member in Alma College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.
Anna was a Fulbright fellow in creative writing in Kenya and a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan. She has been a longtime leader of writing and improv theater workshops in prisons, detention centers, high schools, libraries, and beyond. Her work includes “The unfinished business of Flint’s water crisis,” “11,341 rapes shelved and forgotten: This is one of them,” “He was wrongly imprisoned for 35 years. It wasn’t DNA evidence that got him out,” “Some of the best opioid coverage is not where you’d expect,” “Preserving the legacy of black baseball in Detroit’s Hamtramck Stadium,” “The General Motors Century,” “When the dams broke in Midland, Michigan,” and “Krazy Komic.”
Ron French is associate editor and enterprise reporter for Bridge Michigan, a statewide online news publication. Prior to helping launch Bridge in 2011, French was a project reporter for the Detroit News. During 40 years in journalism, he’s won state and national awards for his reporting in business, criminal justice, education and features, as well as a regional Emmy for a documentary on Michigan’s political divide. He is the author of “Driven Abroad,” which chronicles the movement of jobs overseas from Michigan. His recent work includes “In Michigan schools, ‘mask-optional’ usually means no mask” and “Michigan school superintendents: mostly male, nearly all white.”
Jen Guerra is Senior Editor at Pushkin Industries, where she edits a variety of podcasts and helps develop new shows. She previously worked at Michigan Radio as a reporter and producer, with a focus on education. Jen has received many awards for her work as a reporter, and she was the Executive Producer of the Peabody Award-winning podcast, Believed – a limited-run podcast about the women who brought down disgraced Olympic doctor Larry Nassar. Her other recent work includes Slight Change of Plans, a weekly podcast about who we are, and who we become, in the face of big change, and State of Opportunity, a five-year reporting series about children from low-income families and what it takes to help them succeed.
Stephen Henderson is host of Detroit Today and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. A native of Detroit, Henderson is a graduate of University of Detroit High School and the University of Michigan. His resume includes stints at the Detroit Free Press, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and four years covering the Supreme Court for Knight Ridder’s Washington Bureau. Henderson’s reputation and ability to have fact-based, fair and compelling conversations makes him a leading figure in the Detroit community.
