West Virginia

100 Days in Appalachia

A digital news publication, 100 Days in Appalachia has a mission to share the diverse stories of the 13 states that make up this region. Working with local voices to apply a cultural lens to what’s happening here, it shares what that means for the rest of the world.

Ellen Heffernan

Ellie Heffernan is Mountain State Spotlight’s community watchdog reporter, based in Charleston, West Virginia.  She is a recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, where she studied journalism and environmental studies. Ellie has written for several publications in North Carolina, including INDY Week, The Local Reporter, The UNC Institute for the Environment, and The Daily Tar Heel, and was also a MDDC Press Association Reese Cleghorn Intern at The Daily Record in Baltimore, Maryland, for which she was recognized for her reporting on the area's independent music venues. In her spare time, she likes reading, playing her clarinet or guitar, and hanging out with her cat, Franklin. She can also (kind-of) speak four languages: Macedonian, French, English, and Wolof.

Laura Harbert Allen

Laura Harbert Allen covers the intersection of religion, politics and culture for 100 Days in Appalachia, a nonprofit digital news organization. Prior to joining 100 Days, she contributed to podcasts such as “Making Contact,” “Us & Them,” “Freakonomics Radio” and “Inside Appalachia.” Allen is completing her Ph.D. at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University, where she has taught media criticism and audio/podcasting for three years. Her career in media—a total accident—began when she unknowingly walked into a public radio studio in New Bern, North Carolina. She has since been a public media host, reporter, producer and manager in New Bern, Richmond, Kentucky, and West Virginia, and for eight years she was the communications director for the West Virginia United Methodist Conference.

Mountain State Spotlight

This new investigative and enterprise hub was launched in 2020 and is led by longtime West Virginia journalists Greg Moore, a former editor at the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and Ken Ward Jr., a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant winner for his longtime work covering coal mining and other polluting industries. The staff includes four current RFA Corps members.

Quenton King

Quenton King is the public health reporter for Mountain State Spotlight. He is a native West Virginian, born and raised in Charles Town in the Eastern Panhandle. He previously worked as a policy analyst for the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. His past research and organizing work focused on criminal justice, public health, and environmental justice issues. Quenton holds a bachelor's degree from West Virginia University and a master's of public health from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Mountain State Spotlight

This new investigative and enterprise hub is led by longtime West Virginia journalists Greg Moore, a former editor at the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and Ken Ward Jr., a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant winner for his longtime work covering coal mining and other polluting industries.  

Emily Allen

Emily Allen covers West Virginia's smaller counties, towns and the people who live there as a community watchdog reporter for Mountain State Spotlight, an investigative and enterprise news site based in Charleston, West Virginia. Allen spent her first two years with Report for America at West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she reported on government and public affairs in the southern part of the state. Prior to that, Allen was on the city hall beat for the Grand Forks Herald, writing about government and politics for communities in northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota. Allen earned her B.A. from the University of Minnesota. She grew up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

Ian Karbal

Ian Karbal reports on state politics for Mountain State Spotlight, an investigative and enterprise news site based in Charleston, West Virginia. Before joining the Spotlight, Karbal was a Delacorte Magazine fellow at the Columbia Journalism Review, covering mis/disinformation and the media industry. He holds a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he specialized in investigative reporting in the Toni Stabile Center program. His work has also appeared in The Trace, OpenSecrets, and the Gateway Journalism Review. Karbal, from Chicago, began his career reporting on local government for the Pinckneyville Press in Illinois. His investigative work uncovering biased and for-profit policing practices earned him a Freedom of Information Award from the National Newspaper Association, and made him a finalist for the 2018 Chicago Headline Club's Peter Lisagor Awards.

Mountain State Spotlight

This new investigative and enterprise hub is led by longtime West Virginia journalists Greg Moore, a former editor at the Charleston Gazette-Mail; and Ken Ward Jr., a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant winner for his longtime work covering coal mining and other polluting industries.

Mountain State Spotlight

This new investigative and enterprise hub was launched in 2020 and is led by longtime West Virginia journalists Greg Moore, a former editor at the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and Ken Ward Jr., a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant winner for his longtime work covering coal mining and other polluting industries. The staff includes four current RFA Corps members.