Empire hires city, education reporter
Mary Catharine Martin has joined the Juneau Empire staff to cover the city and education beats.
Martin, 27, relocated from New Iberia, La., where she was the city reporter for The Daily Iberian. During her year-and-a-half there she won two Louisiana Press Association awards for team investigative coverage and news reporting. Martin said she also acquired a healthy love of hot sauce, bread pudding, zydeco and Cajun culture.
"Mary Catharine understands community journalism and will be a natural fit in our newsroom," Managing Editor Charles L. Westmoreland said.
Martin grew up in Roanoke, Va., and graduated from The College of William and Mary in 2004 with a double major in English and Hispanic Studies.
After graduating, she spent two years as an English teacher in Kyoto, Japan.
She writes fiction regularly and reads daily. Her journalism career began with writing travel articles written from Ecuador, Spain and Japan. She also has contributed to Street Sense, a newspaper on homelessness based in Washington, D.C.
Martin said she loves discovering and learning about new places and people. It was this combined with a love of words, stories, and asking questions that drew her to journalism.
Martin said she was "thrilled" to further her career by joining the Juneau Empire, both for the additional challenge reporting at a capital city community newspaper will present and to experience "a unique and beautiful part of the world." She grew up hiking in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia and is looking forward to exploring Juneau.
When not working, Martin said she can most likely be found at coffee shops with her nose in a book or a notebook, walking her rain-averse dog, Kumo, or out exploring the city.