From homelessness and school shootings to access to medical care, public health issues are among the singular most important topics in making sure there is equity for all Arizonans.
In an attempt to cover this topic with the nuance and justice it deserves, LOOKOUT has brought on Josephine Jaye McAuliffe and Rae Wills as public health accountability fellows for the spring of this year. Both fellows will use their skills in community research, outreach, and storytelling to highlight the various ways that Arizona’s LGBTQ+ communities face hardships and successes within the state’s network of public health systems.
The fellowship, partially funded by Vitalyst Health Foundation, is a five-month long program aimed at helping early career journalists gain valuable accountability reporting skills while diving deep into communities that are often under or misrepresented in local media.
“LOOKOUT dominates Arizona's media through prioritizing accurate representation of our queer population,” said LOOKOUT Editor in Chief Joseph Darius Jaafari. “McAuliffe and Wills bring valuable expertise and an enthusiasm to learn that will ensure quality coverage of public health to our pioneering newsroom. We're eager to amplify our community's voices, uplift individuals, and ensure accountability.”
Josephine Jaye McAuliffe
(she/her)
McAuliffe—an Arizona native—is an investigative reporter and podcast producer who works out of Phoenix, Arizona. She is a producer and reporter for Brooklyn-based TransLash Media's “Anti-Trans Hate Machine” podcast. The show is a deep-dive into the people and groups organizing against transgender people across the nation. In it, she tracks the spread of anti-trans ideas from their origins in far-right online spaces to their use as evidence in legislative hearings.
A graduate of ASU's undergraduate journalism program, McAuliffe worked at KJZZ Radio in Tempe. She produced for the station’s daily local news show and reported on accessibility issues in Phoenix.
Among other things, she will focus her fellowship on queer people’s experience in mental health settings, including the continued use of conversion therapy in the state and access to care for trans individuals in rural Arizona.
Wills is a recent graduate of the master’s degree program at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in investigative journalism. While in school, they reported on LGBTQ+ issues, criminal justice, women's rights and education.
Originally from California, they taught English while serving in the Peace Corps in Kosovo, and again at a high school in rural Northern California. But Wills found a passion in journalism and left the classroom after the pandemic.
Wills resides partially in Tucson, and intends to focus their fellowship on how different parts of Arizona's various suburban, rural, and urban areas approach sex education and its impacts on queer populations.
The grant comes with entrance into an incubator program led by American Journalism Project that will help fulfill our mission as Arizona’s only LGBTQ+ investigative news outlet
The news organization is calling on all news outlets to help build out its diversity database, in order to build trust in the community and among readers.
