COLUMBIA, Mo. — Religion News Service (RNS) is pleased to announce that it has hired Roxanne Stone as Managing Editor, Alejandra Molina as a National Reporter and Claire Giangravè as its Vatican reporter.
“RNS continues to attract outstanding journalists to join our ranks,” said Tom Gallagher, RNS CEO and Publisher. “We had a robust applicant pool for these positions and couldn’t be happier welcoming Roxanne, Alejandra and Claire to the RNS team.”
The new hires allow RNS to expand coverage of Hispanic religion in the United States, a growing and often overlooked segment of the national religious landscape, as well as coverage of the Western United States, the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church, said Bob Smietana, RNS Editor-in-Chief.
Molina will be RNS’ first full-time West Coast-based national reporter since its return to nonprofit status in 2011. Giangravè will be RNS’ first full-time Vatican reporter during that time frame.
Stone’s knowledge of the religious landscape and reaching new audiences will further RNS’ mission to inform, illuminate and inspire public discourse on matters relating to belief and convictions, said Smietana.
“I am thrilled to welcome Roxanne, Alejandra and Claire to our team,” said Smietana. “Great days are ahead for RNS.”
The new hires are part of a historic global religion journalism initiative launched by RNS with The Associated Press (AP) and The Conversation U.S., funded by a $4.9 million grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc.
This initiative includes the creation of a joint global religion news desk aimed at providing balanced, nuanced coverage of major world religions, with an emphasis on explaining religious practices and principles behind current events and cultural movements.
Staffed by journalists from RNS and AP and editors from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit publisher of commentary and analysis sourced from academic experts, the desk will produce multiformat religion journalism intended to improve general understanding and analyze the significance of developments in the world of faith.
Roxanne Stone was most recently at Barna Group, where she has served as Editor-in-Chief since 2012. She previously served as Editorial Director of RELEVANT Media Group and formerly was on staff at Christianity Today International. She received her bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University. She will be based in New York City.
Alejandra Molina most recently served as Journalist in Residence at the University of Southern California (USC) and as Equitable Cities Fellow at Next City. She has worked at The Press-Enterprise, La Prensa and OC Excelsior, and The Orange County Register. After the December 2015 San Bernardino mass shooting, she wrote an article for The Press-Enterprise highlighting Inland area faith leaders’ responses to the massacre. In 2018, she was named one of the 15 most influential Latina journalists by Latino Journalists of California. She has also received fellowships from the Center for Health Journalism at USC and the Institute for Justice and Journalism.
Alejandra is a native Spanish speaker and will focus, in part, on the Hispanic community and faith. She received her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of La Verne.
Claire Giangravè was most recently at Crux Catholic Media Inc., where she served as Faith and Culture Correspondent covering the Vatican and the Catholic Church. She has previously worked at CNBC/Class Editori, ForexInfo.it, PBS and MSNBC News. She received her bachelor’s degree from Roma Tre University and her master’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Claire speaks Italian, English and French. She will be based in Rome.
The new staff members will join the RNS editorial team attending the Religion News Association annual conference taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, September 19-21, 2019.
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About Religion News Service, LLC
Religion News Service is an independent, nonprofit and award-winning source of global news on religion, spirituality, culture and ethics, reported by a staff of professional journalists. RNS is not affiliated with any religious tradition. Founded in 1934, RNS seeks to inform readers with objective reporting and insightful commentary and is relied upon by commercial and faith-based news organizations in a number of countries. RNS is a subsidiary of Religion News Foundation and is affiliated with the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri.
