Our Staff
Steve Beatty, Publisher and CEO
As publisher and CEO, Beatty focuses on business development, working to raise money and further raise The Lens’ profile locally and nationally. He is a veteran investigative journalist, having worked as an editor for The Times-Picayune for 15 years. He left New Orleans just before Hurricane Katrina to take a position as an editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and soon became an editor of the newspaper’s watchdog investigative team. He returned to New Orleans in May of 2009. Before joining The Lens, Beatty worked as an investigative reporter for The Pelican Institute, a public policy think tank.
Phone: (504) 655-2375
Email: sbeatty@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @beattylensnola
Karen Gadbois, Co-founder and Staff Writer
Gadbois co-founded The Lens. For her work with television reporter Lee Zurik exposing widespread misuse of city recovery funds — which led to guilty pleas in federal court — Gadbois won some of the highest honors in journalism, including a Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award and a gold medal from Investigative Reporters and Editors.
In 2012 she was awarded the Ethics in Journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on the NOPD’s policy of publicizing the criminal records of homicide victims. She now covers New Orleans government issues and covers land use issues for the Squandered Heritage portion of The Lens.
Phone: (504) 606-6013
Email: kgadbois@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @gadboislensnola
Jed Horne, News Editor
News Editor Jed Horne oversees The Lens’ opinion columns. Horne is a veteran journalist who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize as part of the Times-Picayune team that covered Katrina and the recovery. He is the author of “Desire Street” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005) and “Breach of Faith” (Random House, 2006, 2008), which was declared “the best of the Katrina books” on NPR. He has been interviewed by TV and radio pundits including Rachel Maddow, Bill O’Reilly, Terry Gross, Amy Goodman, Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley.
Phone: (504) 864-3156
Email: jhorne@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @hornelensnola
Marta Jewson, Staff writer
Marta Jewson covers education in New Orleans for The Lens. Jewson began her reporting career covering charter schools for The Lens and helped found the hyperlocal news site Mid-City Messenger. Jewson returned to New Orleans in the fall of 2014 after covering education for the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with majors in journalism and social welfare and a concentration in educational policy studies.
Phone: (612) 802-3063
Email: mjewson@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @martajewson
Charles Maldonado, Staff Writer
Maldonado is The Lens’ government accountability reporter, covering the city of New Orleans and other local government bodies. He previously worked for Gambit, New Orleans’ alternative newsweekly, where he covered city hall, criminal justice and public health. Before moving to New Orleans, he covered state and local government for weekly papers in Nashville. In Knoxville, Tenn., Maldonado received numerous awards for his reporting of a billion-gallon coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant. A native of Detroit, Maldonado and his wife have one child.
Phone: (504) 229-2346
Email: cmaldonado@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @cmaldonadolens
Bob Marshall, Staff Writer
Marshall covers environmental issues for The Lens, with a special focus on coastal restoration and wetlands. While at The Times-Picayune, his work chronicling the people, stories and issues of Louisiana’s wetlands was recognized with two Pulitzer Prizes, the John H. Oakes Prize for Distinguished Environmental Reporting from Columbia University, the Keck Award for best science reporting from The National Academies of Sciences, and top honors from the Society of Professional Journalists, Associated Press, United Press International and Scripps-Howard Foundation National Journalism Awards.
In 2012 Marshall was a member of the inaugural class inducted into the Loyola University School of Communications Den of Distinction. Since 2008 he has been the journalism instructor at the iei Media summer program at the University of Urbino, Italy.
Marshall lives in New Orleans with his wife, Marie Gould, founder of Louisiana Lost Lands Environmental Education Tours.
Phone: (504) 232-5013
Email: bmarshall@thelensnola.org
Twitter: BobMTheLensNola
Anne Mueller, Development Director
Development Director Anne Mueller, a native New Orleanian, learned about the richness of her city through attending elementary school in the French Quarter and in recent years at the Crescent City Farmers Market selling her dad’s German bread. She received a degree in history from Bennington College and a master’s in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi. With more than 15 years of fundraising experience, her professional experience covers a broad range of areas including annual giving, board development, event planning and research. Through her professional and volunteer projects, Anne is committed to the ongoing revitalization of New Orleans.
Phone: (504) 258-1624
Email: amueller@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @muellerlensnola
Steve Myers, Editor
Myers oversees the Lens’ editorial operations. He became editor in 2016 after finishing a two-year stint as professional-in-residence at Texas Christian University’s Department of Journalism, during which time he handled special projects for The Lens. Before joining the staff in September 2012, Myers was managing editor of Poynter Online, the preeminent source of news and training about the journalism industry. At Poynter, he wrote about emerging media practices such as citizen journalism, nonprofit news sites, real-time reporting via social media, data-oriented news apps, iPhoneography, and the fact-checking movement. He spent about 10 years at newspapers, including five years as a local government reporter in Mobile, Alabama. While there, he focused on local government accountability, from jail management to hurricane preparation and response. He was a 2006 Ohio State University Kiplinger Fellow and an Open Society Institute Katrina Media Fellow.
Phone: (504) 298-9750
Email: smyers@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @myersnews
Alumni
Tyler Bridges, Staff Writer
Tyler Bridges covered Louisiana state politics and government policy from October 2012 to June 2014.
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Maggie Calmes, Engagement Editor
May 2011 to May 2012
Rebecca Catalanello, Charter Schools Editor
December 2012 to June 2013
Ariella Cohen, co-founder and staff writer
July 2009 to February 2012
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Matt Davis, Staff Writer
Matt Davis covered criminal justice from September 2010 to March 2012.
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Tom Gogola, Staff Writer
Tom Gogola covered criminal justice for The Lens from February 2012 to May 2013.
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Abe Handler, News Technologist
Abe Handler handled data analysis and Web applications from February 2014 to May 2015.
Brentin Mock, Staff Writer
November 2009 to May 2010
Mark Moseley, Engagement Specialist/Opinion Writer/Charter Schools Reporting Corps Coordinator
Mark Moseley wrote opinion columns, edited and coordinated the Charter Schools Reporting Corps and blogged the “What We’re Reading” link roundup at various points from 2010 to June 2014.
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Dennis Persica, Charter schools editor
June-December 2013
Tom Thoren, Open data reporter
From February 2014 to June 2016, Thoren created news applications such as The Lens’ live election maps and its property sales tracker. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor’s degree in civil and environmental engineering and a master’s degree in news-editorial journalism.
Janaya Williams, Audio producer in residence
September 2013 to June 2014
Jessica Williams, Staff Writer
Jessica Williams covered education from May 2010 to June 2014.
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Twitter: @JWilliamsNOLA