The Marshall Project is delighted to announce the launch of its third local newsroom — this time in St. Louis, which will include two investigative reporters, an engagement reporter, and a partnerships coordinator.
The reporting team will all be based in the St. Louis area. The Marshall Project – St. Louis will combine journalistic horsepower from The Marshall Project’s national newsroom with a local team to deepen local criminal justice coverage in Missouri. The issues include the death penalty, the school-to-prison pipeline, re-entry, and healthcare in prisons.
“Our assembled team of reporters will bring fresh eyes and decades of experience to cover the criminal justice system. I’m extremely excited for the work we will do in St. Louis and around Missouri,” said Marlon A. Walker, managing editor of local, who has deep ties in St. Louis, where he previously worked at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The Marshall Project’s national newsroom has already established a presence reporting in St. Louis. In 2024, we reported a story about a death penalty case in Missouri that highlighted the harm caused by paying death penalty lawyers a flat rate no matter how long they work on a case.
We also partnered with St. Louis Public Radio and APM Reports to report a five-part series on how St. Louis police struggled to solve over a thousand murders in the past decade. By combining public records that our partners had already fought to secure with the skills of our reporting and visuals team, we worked together to produce an immersive, multimedia story that provided a deeper understanding of the reporting. The investigation was recently honored with an EPPY award, which celebrates excellence in digital journalism.
The Marshall Project has hired an impressive team of journalists with a long track record covering criminal justice issues. They include:
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Jesse Bogan joins The Marshall Project as a staff writer. Before that, he worked for nearly 15 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he wrote in-depth stories about people and communities on the margins. He previously covered the Southwest for Forbes magazine and the Texas-Mexico border for the San Antonio Express-News. Bogan has a master’s degree from the Missouri School of Journalism. Before news reporting, he was a grain trader in Mexico for ADM. He grew up in the Missouri Ozarks.
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Katie Moore joins The Marshall Project as a staff writer. Previously, she was the justice reporter on The Kansas City Star’s accountability team, where she covered policing, prison conditions, and the death penalty. She was part of a team that reported on racism within the Kansas City Police Department, which led to a federal investigation. She has also reported for The Topeka Capital-Journal and was a fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation. Moore holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kansas and a master’s degree in Peace and Justice Studies from the University of San Diego.
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Ivy Scott joins The Marshall Project as an engagement reporter. She was previously a reporter for the Boston Globe, where she most recently covered climate issues. Before her time on the climate desk, she covered criminal justice issues, including the state courts, local police departments, district attorneys, the Department of Correction, and the attorney general’s office. She was a 2024 Livingston finalist for her narrative reporting on the aftermath of the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, and a Society for Features Journalism winner for her podcast miniseries on dating and love in prison. She studied international journalism at Brown University and is nearly fluent in French.
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Will Lager joins The Marshall Project as an interim partnerships coordinator. He is a multidisciplinary journalist who bridges the spaces between journalism, data and the public through collaboration, visual storytelling, audience engagement, product and design development. Over 10 years at MPR, Lager built partnerships and worked on award-winning projects like the Peabody and Murrow-winning “Betrayed by Silence,” on the abuse of the Catholic Church. After MPR, he worked on various community projects, including a pop-up newsroom covering the murder trial of former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin. Lager is also an adjunct faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism teaching Multimedia Planning and Design, emphasizing audience-first and accessible digital projects.
The Marshall Project – St. Louis will co-publish many of its stories with local publications to support the way other local newsrooms cover criminal justice themselves. This follows a similar model to newsrooms in Cleveland and Jackson, Mississippi.
The Missouri Foundation for Health’s three-year grant will enable The Marshall Project to hire staff and build capacity in Missouri. The Joan & John Vatterott Family Foundation is also supporting this initiative.
“We remain committed to strengthening the journalistic infrastructure in Missouri and building a pipeline of reporters who will remain in the state to tell our stories,” said Missouri Foundation for Health Vice President of Strategic Communications Courtney Z. McCall. “We see partnerships like this one as a step toward achieving health equity and playing a role in changing systems that serve as a barrier in solving the complex health issues of our communities.”
