New editor to lead Virginia Mercury – Virginia Mercury

Sarah Vogelsong, an award-winning vitality and surroundings reporter, has been named the following editor in chief of the Virginia Mercury, a nonprofit information outlet in Richmond masking Virginia authorities, politics and coverage.

Robert Zullo, who oversaw the location’s launch in 2018, is leaving the helm on the finish of the summer season for a brand new nationwide reporting position specializing in renewable vitality and the electrical grid with States Newsroom, the Mercury’s dad or mum group. He will likely be based mostly in Southern Illinois.

“Beginning the Mercury and dealing with the proficient journalists who’ve made it a related, helpful and revered a part of Virginia’s media panorama has been the spotlight of my profession,” Zullo mentioned. “I do know it is going to be in good arms. Sarah is a nationally and regionally acknowledged reporter, meticulous in her work, scrupulously truthful and dedicated to persevering with the Mercury’s observe file of insightful protection of state authorities that helps Virginians make sense of coverage and politics.”

Vogelsong, who grew up in McLean, has been a fulltime and freelance reporter and editor for 14 years, working for the Chesapeake Bay Journal, the Petersburg Progress-Index, the Caroline Progress, the American Political Science Affiliation and different organizations. She’s going to assume her new position July 5.

“Whereas Robert Zullo will depart some giant footwear to fill, I’m honored to be entrusted with shepherding the Mercury as we proceed to increase our protection of the coverage and politics that form Virginia,” Vogelsong mentioned. “Because the native papers which have historically supported our democracy shrink, retailers just like the Mercury are extra essential than ever to tell the general public, maintain the highly effective accountable and elevate the voices of these too usually overlooked of decision-making. I look ahead to upholding the Mercury’s dedication to insightful, in-depth reporting as we proceed to develop and enhance our protection of Virginia and Virginians.”

Vogelsong joined the Mercury as a reporter in 2019 and has gained quite a few awards for protection of local weather change, vitality coverage, environmental justice and air pollution. Final 12 months she gained a first-place award for explanatory reporting from the Society of Environmental Journalists.

She was chosen for the 2020 cohort of the Columbia Power Journalism Initiative and is a 2022 Metcalf Fellow with the College of Rhode Island Metcalf Institute’s Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists. In 2017, she was honored as one in all Gatehouse’s Function Writers of the Yr. She is a graduate of the School of William and Mary.