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Julia Ritchey | Journalist

By Kelsie Moore
Photo by Kelsie Moore

About Me

I’m a Nashville-based editor, writer, podcaster with an interest in local politics, climate change and popular culture. I currently oversee afternoon newscasts at WPLN-Nashville Public Radio. I’ve worked on the award-winning podcast Drilled, an investigative series on climate change, and more recently for The Indicator, NPR’s daily economics program. Other work has appeared through outlets such as NPR, Planet Money, The Associated Press, High Country News, 1A, Here & Now, Carolina Public Press, Savannah Morning News and Voice of America. In my spare time, I bake. I helped launch Bread Riot Bakehouse in Salt Lake City and sometimes moonlight at Underground Baking Co. in Western North Carolina around the holidays.

Editing & Coaching

Newsrooms are changing, and so are the audiences they serve. I provide mentorship, coaching and editing consults for a negotiable hourly rate. If you have newer reporters that require additional training or you need to talk through the launch of a special project or podcast, I’m your chick.

I created a weeklong pilot called SPOT SPRINT WEEK to refocus our newsroom’s energy on incremental coverage and strengthening the fundamental building blocks of enterprise reporting. In a normal week, we may have produced between 12-15 spots. During sprint week, our reporters produced 35.

The tension between filling daily newscasts and satisfying longer term feature ambitions is often treated as an unsolvable dichotomy, one that doesn’t reflect changing media consumption habits. Good journalism can come in small packages with concerted effort, care and creativity.

View my slide show for the rules.

Audio Samples

Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered all police departments in the state to reinvent and modernize their policies and procedures. But efforts in Potsdam, a predominantly white community in upstate New York, have not gone smoothly after an advisory committee’s only two Black members resigned. The two members said the group was not tackling the issues of race and policing head on. NCPR, January 2021
President Trump has been sued for blocking his critics on Twitter, but increasingly even state and local politicians are doing the same. One Utah Republican state senator is asked to talked to the person he blocked to explain why. NPR, October 2017
45 Days Podcast: On your mark, get set, #utpol. 45 Days takes you behind the scenes of the Utah Legislature’s fast and furious annual session. Each week, reporters Julia Ritchey and Nicole Nixon highlight critical bills and how they could affect you. KUER, March 2019.

Work With Me

Currently available for freelance editing, coaching, producing, tape syncs and other creative consults.

Praise For Me

Recipient of four regional Edward R. Murrow awards and 12 local SPJ awards, including best reporter, best use of sound and best political reporting. Also a Charles Kuralt fellow at Voice of America and recipient of a Nevada Humanities grant.

Follow Me

On Twitter or LinkedIn.