The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk is growing with the addition of an assistant editorial director and a data journalist.
Lina Tran joins as assistant editorial director. Tran is a journalist based in Chicago. Previously, she was an editor with the U.N. Environment Programme and a reporter at Milwaukee's NPR, where she covered everything from air quality to cicadas and apple pie baked in a paper bag. She was also a news and politics fellow at Grist and earlier wrote about the sun for NASA.
Tran’s work has appeared in outlets such as NPR, Short Wave, Science Friday and Undark, and has been recognized by the Public Media Journalists Association and Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association, among others. She is from the Gulf Coast of Alabama and a graduate of Tulane University.
Tran will be the Desk’s first full-time assistant editorial director. In this role, she’ll edit its expanding lineup of content, with a particular focus on digital and social media.
Meanwhile, Annika McGinnis joins as a data journalist. McGinnis is a data and investigative journalist based in New York. Before joining the Desk, she co-founded InfoNile, a Uganda-based geojournalism platform and journalists' network focused on water and environment across 10 Nile basin countries. At InfoNile, she spent eight years leading cross-border investigations and spearheading science journalism platforms.
Most recently, McGinnis was a Columbia Journalism Investigations fellow reporting on climate and public health. She has also reported for Reuters, USA Today and McClatchy newspapers, and her work has been recognized by Covering Climate Now, the Fetisov Journalism Awards and the Uganda National Journalism Awards, among others. She has a master’s in data journalism from Columbia University.
On the Desk, McGinnis will work with Desk reporters to enhance their data work and visual presentation. She will also draw on her deep experience and knowledge of water issues to produce stories of her own.
“What excites me most about the addition of Annika and Lina isn’t just that they are talented journalists — they’re both experienced science journalists,” said Chas Sisk, the Desk’s editorial director. “The Desk’s biggest strength is that we go deep with our reporting. Having two more people on the team who know the science — and how to communicate it — will make our work even more sophisticated.”
Both were selected following a nationwide search by the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Tran and McGinnis begin work this month.
The Ag & Water Desk recently asked a leader of Chicago’s water district and an environmental activist about the consequences of reversing the Chicago River in 1900. They shared their thoughts during the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference.
Our latest collaborative project, free to republish, explores recent legal and policy changes impacting wetlands, and the many ways people interact with these landscapes in the Mississippi River Basin.
