The following excerpt was sent out from hoptownchronicle.org:
Joe Sonka
The Kentucky Public Radio Network (KPR), a collaborative of public media outlets in the bluegrass state, has hired veteran political journalist Joe Sonka as its first enterprise political reporter.
Joe comes to KPR from the Louisville Courier Journal, where he was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s controversial pardons on his way out of office in 2019.
Joe is a Lexington native and attended Transylvania University and University of Kentucky. He currently lives in Louisville and has covered Frankfort for more than a decade.
In his new role, Joe will explain relevant issues to everyday Kentuckians, hold public officials and institutions accountable and take a longer view of policy decisions.
The new position is part of an expansion of KPR’s statehouse team supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
How’d you get into covering Kentucky politics?
I broke into this field during the heyday of the “blogging” era, when anybody could create their own free website and write about whatever they wanted. As a Lexington-raised political junkie – inherited from my MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour-watching dad – with a political science degree, the topic I chose was Kentucky politics. My site gained enough of an audience that I was offered a job in 2011 covering city and state politics for LEO Weekly in Louisville. In 2019, I was hired to be a part of the Louisville Courier Journal’s politics team, eventually taking over their statehouse reporter position after Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame inductee Tom Loftus retired.
What excites you about working in public media?
I’m very impressed with the team that has been built by Kentucky Public Radio and Louisville Public Media, and I’m looking forward to joining them in pursuing their mission of shining a light on Kentucky government officials, agencies and policies. I am also thrilled to produce news that is free and accessible to all audiences of the state, whether they are reading online or listening on the radio.
