Robert James Finn covers Louisiana’s Florida Parishes for The Advocate in Baton Rouge. As an intern for VTDigger, a nonprofit website covering daily news in Vermont, he reported on COVID-19’s effects on the state economy and legislature. Finn has covered healthcare inequity in Mississippi for a series partnership between the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and the Pulitzer Center, and his work has appeared in the Clarion-Ledger, the Hattiesburg American, MLK50, and Indian Country Today. As a student at Middlebury College, he worked in Guatemala on an initiative to revitalize Mayan languages spoken in the country’s highlands, played basketball, and was managing editor of the student newspaper, The Middlebury Campus, where he helped direct the publication’s transition to digital platforms as students were sent home in the first weeks of the pandemic. Finn graduated in February 2021 with a degree in history and Spanish. He’s from Mill Valley, California.
Beat: Florida parishes
The reporter will cover local government and general news in Livingston and Tangipahoa parishes, focusing on schools, public meetings, and business and industry.