The Border Belt Independent is happy to announce that Morgan Casey has joined the staff as a full-time health reporter.
Casey will cover health topics impacting southeastern North Carolina, from physician shortages to the opioid crisis.
“I’m grateful be to the reporter who can help elevate the many health stories waiting to be told in the Border Belt,” Casey said. “I am so lucky to be the one who gets to help share them.”
Casey is a second-year Report for America corps member. Since 2017, Report for America has matched over 750 journalists with almost 430 local newsrooms, public radio stations, and television outlets. The national service program—made possible by the Knight Foundation, Google News Initiative, Microsoft, and many other philanthropic partners—aims to address news deserts in local communities across the United States and its territories.
Report for America pays for about half of a corps member’s salary, and trains newsroom leadership to raise a portion of the remaining half from local funders. The format aims to create a sustainable position after the Report for America term, which can last up to three years, is over.
Casey was previously a health reporter and corps member with CityView in Fayetteville. Like the Border Belt Independent, CityView is part of The Assembly network. There, she covered health topics like food insecurity and substance use disorders impacting Cumberland County and soldiers on Fort Bragg.
She graduated from Arizona State University with a master’s degree in investigative journalism. She earned bachelor’s degrees in media and communications and French from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Off the clock, you can find her running and drinking coffee with Fayetteville’s run club, Running Wild Collective, watching anime, or spending too much money at a local farmers market.
Casey, who started with the Border Belt Independent on Oct. 14, can be reached at morgancasey@borderbelt.org. Readers can learn more about Report for America and its efforts to strengthen communities through public service journalism at www.reportforamerica.org.