AP hires two new reporters to national team

The Associated Press has hired Katrease Stafford and Aaron Morrison to join the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team and write about how race intersects with topics such as politics, criminal justice, government federal policies, climate change, religion, entertainment and sports.

Stafford and Morrison will be working with AP journalists around the country and globally to deliver smart and impactful journalism on the issues of race and inequality, with a sharp focus on the 2020 campaign.

As of now, Stafford is an enterprise and investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press, and Morrison is a senior reporter at The Appeal, a national nonprofit criminal justice outlet where he covers policing, incarceration and criminal justice reform.

“These two hires are significant and exciting steps that are central to the AP’s goal of expanding coverage of race and themes of inequality, especially as we get deeper into the 2020 campaign season,” said Noreen Gillespie, the AP’s deputy managing editor for U.S. news. “Kat and Aaron are outstanding reporters who from day one will help the AP broaden our coverage in this area.”

Stafford is a 2019 Ida B. Wells Investigative Fellow and graduated in 2012 from Eastern Michigan University with a degree in journalism. Whereas, Morrison is a 2008 graduate of San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism.