COLUMBIA, Mo. – Two new staff members have joined the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, expanding the award-winning environmental journalism collaborative’s capacity in editing and audience engagement.
Irina Zhorov was selected as the Desk’s new Assistant Director, and Britny Cordera as the Desk’s first Engagement Editor, after highly competitive nationwide searches. They join the team in the midst of an exciting time of growth for the Desk, which brought on its second cohort of Report for America newsrooms and reporters earlier this summer.
“We’re growing, and we hope to reach more of the 70 million people who live in the Mississippi River Basin,” said Desk Executive Director Sara Shipley Hiles.
Assistant Director
Irina Zhorov will work on a part-time basis to edit Ag & Water Desk stories, oversee story distribution and fulfill other duties to support the project. A freelance journalist based in Mobile, Alabama, she has been reporting on environmental issues for more than a decade.
“I'm excited to get to know the reporters scattered around the Mississippi River basin and to help edit their stories for our dedicated readers,” Zhorov said. “I'm also looking forward to growing our audience. The region we cover is enormous and diverse, yet many of the stories the Desk produces are relevant from Minnesota to Louisiana; I want the people who call various parts of the basin home to have access to the stories we tell.”
Zhorov has worked at NPR stations in Wyoming, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and has filed stories from Puerto Rico and Russia. Her work has appeared in print and audio outlets such as NPR, Marketplace, Planet Money, 99 Percent Invisible, Noema Magazine, and the Gravy podcast. She has also written a novel, Lost Believers. She can be reached at irina@agwaterdesk.org.
Zhorov will replace Annie Ropeik, who has been the Desk’s Assistant Director since May 2022. Ropeik is moving on to focus on freelance reporting in her home base of Maine. She will assist the Desk in an advisory capacity this fall to organize its upcoming team conference at the Missouri School of Journalism.
Engagement Editor
As the Ag & Water Desk’s first Engagement Editor, freelance journalist Britny Cordera will work with other team members part-time to develop new strategies for amplifying the Desk’s work on social media and within local communities. Cordera, who is based in Oklahoma City, will also assist Desk reporters and newsroom partners with audience engagement projects.
“My biggest goal is to help make the Desk’s reporting more accessible and engaging for everyone,” Cordera said. “I’ll be working with journalists at the Desk and their newsrooms to share and promote their work across formats and platforms, through social media, newsletters and even listening sessions where communities can get to know the journalists and the work they do.”
Cordera is a published poet, nonfiction writer, and environmental journalist who writes about the intersections between justice, climate solutions, and culture. She was previously StateImpact Oklahoma’s science and environment reporter and an intern at St. Louis Public Radio. She can be reached at britny@agwaterdesk.org.
Read more about Irina and Britny, as well as the rest of our staff and journalists, here.
About the Desk
The Ag & Water Desk is a collaborative network of journalists focused on increasing coverage of agriculture, water and other environmental issues in one of the world’s major river systems. Founded in 2021, the initiative is based at the Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report for America and the Society of Environmental Journalists, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
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.
