The alpine is turning color. There’s snow on the mountains. Changes are afoot, and that’s true for us at Raven Radio too.

After four years with Raven News, Emily Kwong will be departing Raven Radio in December for a 5-month international reporting fellowship through NPR and the John Alexander Project. You can read about it here. Emily will be reporting on ecological migration in Mongolia, telling the story of a nomadic population adapting to change. Emily will be moving to Washington D.C. and based in Mongolia from Mid-January to Mid-March 2019. Her stories will debut on NPR in the spring.

Emily’s last day of work will be December 7th. We’re excited to announce our 2017 Winter Fellow Katherine Rose will be taking over as interim reporter on December 10th and Peter Apathy will be our lead Morning Edition Host moving forward.

Emily first came to Raven Radio in 2014 as our Post-Graduate Fellow in Community Journalism, fresh off a plane from New York City and without any news experience. She quickly fell in love with Sitka and Southeast. Emily was hired as our full-time reporter in 2015, taking over for Rachel Waldholz. Over the years, she hosted the bi-monthly Assembly broadcast, reported on everything from lost sea lions to the danger deer pose to airplanes, tracked community conversations around mass shootings, herring, and Alaska Day, and most recently, how Sitkans are adapting to rising Cost of Living. She also taught radio class as part of DYP week at Blatchley Middle School.

“I want locals to know that this radio station is theirs, a platform for their voices and their power. Reporting in community holds you to a higher standard. I will carry that with me forever and will miss this place enormously. Thank you to everyone in Sitka for your trust and the lessons you taught me over the years,” said Emily Kwong.

“I am so proud of Emily’s incredible professional growth. We are sad to see her go, but she leaves an incredible legacy of innovation and care at Raven Radio,” said General Manager Becky Meiers. 

KCAW news director Robert Woolsey will begin the search for Kwong’s replacement after the new year. “Cultivating reporting talent is one of the things this station — this community, really — does best.” he said. “Her moving up to national reporting is a good thing. Saying goodbye to Emily means saying hello to someone else who wants to follow in her footsteps.”

To contact the News Department, e-mail news@kcaw.org or call 907-747-5879. To reach Emily personally, write her at eka610@gmail.com. You can follow her reporting in Mongolia on Instagram @thejohnaproject