Kansas City PBS Welcomes New Report for America Corps Member

The Kansas City PBS newsroom, Flatland, is pleased to announce its newest Report for America corps member, Julie Freijat, who will join the team this summer as an agriculture and water sustainability reporter. 

“Kansas City PBS is proud to be a Report for America host newsroom,” said Kliff Kuehl, Kansas City PBS president and CEO. “Through this support, we can bring more journalists into the ecosystem, supporting their long-term success and better serving the community.” 

As an experienced data reporter, Freijat will shed a critical light on agriculture, water and sustainability challenges in the heartland, emphasizing the bi-state region encompassing the Kansas City metropolitan area. 

“Water is the single most important resource on Earth, and it is both underappreciated and undercovered,” said Chris Lester, Kansas City PBS/Flatland managing editor. “This a great opportunity for us to lean into coverage of one of the defining issues of the next generation.” 

As a Report for America corps member, Freijat will work on reporting projects with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting collaborative involving the Missouri School of Journalism, Report for America and the Society of Environmental Journalists. This crucial partnership will enable Kansas City PBS to serve audiences with clear data supporting sustainable practices in water management. 

“I am so thrilled to be working with Kansas City PBS. I have called the Kansas City area my home for my entire life,” Freijat said. “I am excited for the opportunity to tell impactful and engaging stories about a community I care deeply about.”

Freijat is a former Dow Jones News Fellowship reporting intern at Kansas City PBS, earning a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2024. Before working with Kansas City PBS, Freijat was a student innovation staffer at the Reynolds Journalism Institute and a graduate research assistant for Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc.

“Today’s newsrooms have become so lean that it can be difficult for them to provide the mentorship and support that early-career journalists are looking for,” said Rachel Rohr, vice president of program development at Report for America. “By sharing resources and creating opportunities for peer networking, we can strengthen their reporting and well-being.”

Report for America today announced that it will place nearly 60 journalists in new positions at local newsrooms across the country this summer. Since its launch in 2017, Report for America’s national service program has matched more than 650 journalists with local newspapers, public media stations, digital platforms and television outlets.

Kansas City PBS/Flatland has been a host newsroom with Report for America since 2020. The work of our Report for America corps members is made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.