How the Twin Cities’ Sahan Journal chronicles a diverse Minnesota

Our work with newsrooms across the country offers us a unique vantage point of how cities and towns are evolving, and it is always revealing to see what issues are coming to the fore and how communities are approaching them.

In too many places, the local news operations are stressed and declining, lacking the resources to cover the demographic, social and economic shifts in their communities, leaving their readers without the tools to understand how these changes are happening and what are the benefits for the entire population. This opens a door for those who exploit the fear of change to peddle divisive messages for personal gain.

But when we held our national gathering of Report for America in Minneapolis last week, we had time to catch a glimpse of a unique and thriving media landscape with a healthy big city newspaper in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and one of the top public radio newsrooms in the country at Minnesota Public Radio. There were distressing signals about declining print newspapers, like the Gannett-owned St. Cloud Times, coming out of smaller cities in more rural regions, but in Minneapolis overall we saw a lot of reasons to be hopeful.

And one place where hope is truly plentiful is the Sahan Journal, a non-profit, digital newsroom dedicated to telling stories of immigrants and communities of color across Minnesota. With a growing staff of more than 23 people who reflect the diversity of the state, a $3 million annual budget and a surging online audience of more than 50,000 unique visitors per month, Sahan Journal has carved out a place for itself in just five years across a fertile American landscape of non-profit, digital startups.

The pioneering founder of Sahan Journal, Mukhtar Ibrahim, recently announced he would be stepping down as CEO and publisher and he has cleared a path for new leadership to take the organization further. Last month, it was announced that Vanan Murugesan will take the helm as executive director. The leadership of this newsroom has been rightfully lauded, but the staff reporters are where we wanted to offer a chance to see this newsroom’s excellence.

We sat down for an interview with Katelyn Vue, who is a Report for America corps member in her second year of the program at the Sahan Journal, covering the issue of housing.

Vue was born in Minnesota, and her parents hailed from Laos and Thailand, part of a vibrant Hmong community in Minneapolis. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2022 and landed her first job with Sahan Journal, where she has already produced an extraordinary body of work. In June, she was named Young Journalist of the Year by the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ.)

“Vue’s reporting on housing from the tenant perspective was notable and put her a notch above to keep those in power accountable,” the SPJ judges wrote. “Not only is Vue a talented writer, she’s using public records creatively and connects with the community she’s reporting on in deep and meaningful ways.”

Vue was in college when the Sahan Journal was founded, just before the murder of George Floyd left the city struggling with unrest and calls for justice.

In the last five years, the immigrant population and communities of color have faced a multiplicity of challenging issues along the lines of race, identity and inequity, but one issue that stands out to newsroom leaders as among the most formidable and urgent to resolve is housing. So Vue finds herself offering indispensable coverage on an issue that has the full attention of the city.

We were able to hear some of her behind-the-scenes stories, as she chronicles how immigrants and communities of color influence, and are affected, by the city’s transformation. It was inspiring to hear how she thinks about her job as a form of service and how she reflects on the Sahan Journal’s role in her community.

“I was lucky to cover a beat like housing because that affects everyone,” she said. “Telling those types of stories through the lens of immigrants and communities of color felt like an opportunity that I don’t think many people get to have, and I think that really helped me understand more about housing, but also understand how it affects communities.”


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