Mizani Ball, Marketing Manager
Mizani Ball is a filmmaker and award-winning producer based in New Orleans. She completed her MFA in Documentary Media at Northwestern University in 2021. Shortly after graduating she began working as an Associate Producer for the series Chicago Stories at Window To The World Communications, Inc. (WTTW). She launched her career as a filmmaker with her short film ‘Bayou For Us,’ which premiered at New Orleans Film Festival in 2021. Her work on the film ‘Birth of Gospel’ for Chicago Stories won an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement for Documentary – Cultural. After years of freelancing in the industry working on productions for Vice News, WeTV, HBO, Participant Media and many more she decided to bring her talents back to New Orleans.
Email: mball@thelensnola.org
Gus Bennett, Photojournalist and Staff Writer
Gus Bennett is The Lens’ staff photographer and a contributing writer covering criminal justice. Bennett brings more than 40 years of experience as a celebrated portrait and conceptual street photographer, documenting the city’s cultural, spiritual, and social landscape. His personal work centers on the themes dignity, community, and legacy—especially through his acclaimed New Orleans People Project.
Bennett’s photography was used as set decoration for the 1999 season of the HBO series Sex and the City. In 2005, he was a lecturer in the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff’s Office Rehabilitation Program, using photography to support transformation. After being chosen as a 2019 Fulbright Scholar, he completed work in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is the 2023 Grand Prize of the Jury Winner and the 2024 Prize of the Public Winner at the Photographic Nights of Selma Competition. His additional honors include the Urban League’s “Essence of New Orleans” award, the Mardi Gras Indian Council’s “Keeper of the Flame,” and a residency at the Joan Mitchell Center.
Email: gbennett@thelensnola.org
Delaney Dryfoos, Environmental Reporter
Delaney Dryfoos is the partnerships editor for The Lens. She works to expand reporting collaborations between journalists and identify stories from nonprofit newsrooms to republish for The Lens’ audience. Previously, they covered the environmental beat for The Lens as a Report for America corps member in collaboration with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk. While Dryfoos loved living in New Orleans, she is now working part-time for The Lens while reporting on the environment in the greater Boston area. They are thrilled for the opportunity to continue working with this wonderful southern Louisiana community.
Phone: (551) 579-0111
Email:ddryfoos@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @delaneydryfoos
Karen Gadbois, Co-founder
Karen Gadbois, co-founder of The Lens. Originally trained as a textile artist, Gadbois became interested in blogging while in Katrina exile in Texas. Armed with a computer and an insatiable desire to help rebuild, she started a blog called “Squandered Heritage” which eventually grew into The Lens.
Her early work with Lee Zurik produced a number of shared awards. Gadbois also won the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics in Journalism Award for reporting on the NOPD’s practice of releasing the criminal records of people murdered in the city. She now oversees donor relations and searches for new opportunities for The Lens. And she still works as a textile artist.
Phone: (504) 606-6013
Email: kgadbois@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @gadboislensnola
Carolyne Heldman, Behind The Lens Executive Producer
Carolyne Heldman has been in media for 35 years, and is currently the podcast host and producer for Behind The Lens. Heldman served as executive director at Aspen Public Radio, an NPR affiliate, where she launched four weekly news, public affairs, and cultural affairs programs. She has been a guest lecturer at Tulane University, is a frequent guest and moderator for the Aspen Institute, Rocky Mountain Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute.
Email: cheldman@thelensnola.org
Marta Jewson, Schools Reporter
Marta Jewson covers education for The Lens. She began her reporting on at Gambit Weekly and helped to found the Mid-City Messenger, a hyperlocal news site.
Jewson has covered New Orleans schools for 14 years through the nation’s largest education-reform experiment, borne of Hurricane Katrina. She was a founding member of The Lens’ Charter School Reporting Corps in 2011 and was instrumental in holding schools and their boards accountable to sunshine laws during the rapid expansion of charter schools. Her awards include the New Orleans Press Club’s Alex Waller Memorial Award, which recognizes the best among all writing award-winners.
Jewson hails from the other end of the Mississippi River, growing up in Minneapolis. She enjoys exploring National Parks and walking the city with her extra-tall Blue Heeler. She lives in Mid-City.
Email: mjewson@thelensnola.org
Twitter: @martajewson
la.org
Phone: (504) 258-1624
Shawniece Mitchell, Social Media Manager
Shawniece Mitchell is the social media manager for The Lens, where she oversees the organization’s digital presence and engagement across platforms and with New Orleanians at every level. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Mitchell is a storyteller and strategist currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications at Xavier University of Louisiana. Since moving to New Orleans, she has managed more than seven media pages and newsletters, using her skills to grow audiences and spark conversations that matter. Her writing has appeared in The Louisiana Weekly, New Orleans Data News Weekly, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, reflecting her passion for amplifying voices and sharing stories that shape communities.
Email: smitchell@thelensnola.org
Mark Moseley
Mark Moseley curates the The Lens’ “Monday Scoop” newsletter, which highlights essential local reporting and sharp commentary on issues that matter to New Orleanians. During an earlier stint with the Lens, he wrote opinion columns, coordinated the Charter Schools Reporting Corps and launched the “What We’re Reading” link roundup. His opinion writing earned a first-place award from The New Orleans Press Club in 2012.
Moseley has lived in New Orleans since 1996 and co-founded the Rising Tide new media conference, which ran annually from 2006 to 2015.
Email: mmoseley@thelensnola.org
Anne Mueller, Executive Director
Anne M. Mueller serves as The Lens’ Executive Director, leading the organization’s strategic direction, long-term planning, and internal operations to ensure financial sustainability. She joined The Lens as its first development director in 2011, when she established the newsroom’s fundraising and development work.
Originally from Montreal, Canada, and having lived in Hamburg, Germany, Mueller has more than 30 years of nonprofit experience across New York City, New Orleans, and Oxford, Miss. Her background includes roles with the Echoing Green Foundation, Harlem Restoration Project, University of Mississippi Foundation, The National WWII Museum, and A Studio in the Woods, a program of Tulane University.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Bennington College (VT) and a master’s degree in Southern Studies, focusing on sense of place, from the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture.
Email: amueller@thelensno
Delaney Nolan, Environmental Reporter
Delaney Nolan is the environmental reporter for The Lens. She has covered climate change and displacement as a freelance journalist since 2021’s Hurricane Ida, with bylines in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Nation, and elsewhere. Her reporting has received support from the International Women’s Media Foundation, the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She’s also reported from conflict zones, including Ukraine and the Occupied West Bank.
Nolan moved to New Orleans from North Carolina in 2010, left to complete an MFA and a Fulbright Fellowship, and then returned in 2019. She also writes fiction; her debut novel, Happy Bad, comes out October 2025.
La’Shance Perry, Lead Photographer
La’Shance Perry is The Lens’ photographer. She is an experienced multimedia content creator born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is driven by a love of storytelling and a desire to provide the best media content possible. She has a primary focus on social justice and the culture of the Black community in New Orleans. Perry is a cum laude graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication. She is also a published writer and photographer with work featured in ESPN Undefeated and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.
Email: lperry@thelensnola.org
Katy Reckdahl, Editor
Katy Reckdahl, editor of The Lens, has been an award-winning journalist in New Orleans for 25 years. She started her news career at City Pages in Minneapolis, then moved downriver.
Reckdahl has been a freelance reporter for The New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Weather Channel, among others. She was a producer for Floodlines, the Atlantic podcast that won a 2021 Peabody award. Locally, she has been a staff reporter at Gambit and the daily Times-Picayune. She also partnered with WDSU-TV for three Emmy Award-winning education pieces.
Her other awards include a Casey Journalism Media for “indefatigable reporting” on juvenile justice in Louisiana, a James Aronson award for ongoing coverage about New Orleans homeless people, and more than two-dozen first places at the New Orleans Press Club Awards.
Email: kreckdahl@thelensnola.org
Bernard Smith, Criminal Justice Reporter
Bernard E. Smith is a criminal justice reporter for The Lens, covering courts, corrections, policing, and justice reform across New Orleans and Louisiana. With a background in justice-focused education and more than two decades of lived experience within the system, Smith brings a uniquely informed perspective to issues of incarceration, legal access, and systemic accountability. He holds associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in Christian Ministry, both earned during his time directly engaging with the justice system. His reporting aims to center the voices of those most affected by policy while scrutinizing the institutions that shape public safety and punishment.
Email: bsmith@thelensnola.org
Alumni
Steve Beatty, Publisher and CEO
Steve Beatty held several positions overseeing editorial and business matters from 2010 to August 2017, most recently as publisher and CEO.
Tyler Bridges, Staff Writer
Tyler Bridges covered Louisiana state politics and government policy from October 2012 to June 2014.
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Maggie Calmes, Engagement Editor
Maggine Calmes was the Engagement Editor from May 2011 to May 2012.
Rebecca Catalanello, Charter Schools Editor
Rebecca Catalanella was the Charter Schools Editor from December 2012 to June 2013.
Ariella Cohen, co-founder and staff writer
Ariella Cohen was a staff writer from July 2009 to February 2012. She currently serves on the Lens’ Board of Directors.
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Nicholas Chrastil, Staff Writer
Nicholas Chrastil covered criminal justice for The Lens from 2020 – 2025.
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Matt Davis, Staff Writer
Matt Davis covered criminal justice from September 2010 to March 2012.
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Tom Gogola, Staff Writer
Tom Gogola covered criminal justice for The Lens from February 2012 to May 2013.
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Abe Handler, News Technologist
Abe Handler handled data analysis and Web applications from February 2014 to May 2015.
Jed Horne, Opinion Editor
Jed Horne oversaw The Lens’ opinion columns until his retirement in 2019. Horne is a veteran journalist who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize as part of the Times-Picayune team that covered Katrina and the recovery. He is the author of “Desire Street” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005) and “Breach of Faith” (Random House, 2006, 2008), which was declared “the best of the Katrina books” on NPR. He has been interviewed by TV and radio pundits including Rachel Maddow, Bill O’Reilly, Terry Gross, Amy Goodman, Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley.
Charles Maldonado, Editor
Charles Maldonado worked at The Lens from 2013 to 2022. From 2013 to 2018, he served as staff writer covering the New Orleans city government and criminal justice. He was named editor in 2018.
Bob Marshall, Staff Writer
Bob Marshall covered environmental issues for The Lens, with a special focus on coastal restoration and wetlands, from February 2013 through February 2017.
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Brentin Mock, Staff Writer
Brentin Mock was a staff writer from November 2009 to May 2010.
Mark Moseley, Engagement Specialist/Opinion Writer/Charter Schools Reporting Corps Coordinator
Mark Moseley wrote opinion columns, edited and coordinated the Charter Schools Reporting Corps and blogged the “What We’re Reading” link roundup at various points from 2010 to June 2014.
View columns and “What We’re Reading” posts
Steve Myers, Editor
Steve Myers worked at The Lens from 2012 to 2018, serving as managing editor, special projects editor and editor.
Kerry Nix, Staff Writer
Kerry Nix was a staff writer for The Lens in 2018.
Nicholas Peddle, Interim Executive Director
Nicholas Peddle served as Interim Executive Director from March to May 2018.
Dennis Persica, Charter schools editor
Dennis Persica covered charter schools from June to December 2013.
Joshua Rosenberg, Staff Writer
Joshua Rosenberg covered the environmental beat for The Lens in 2022 and 2023 as a Report for America corps member, working in collaboration with the Mississippi River Basin Ag and Water Desk.
Jessica Rosgaard, Podcast Host and Producer
Jessica Rosgaard produced and hosted Behind The Lens from May 2019 to January 2020.
Michael Isaac Stein, Staff Writer
Michael Isaac Stein covered New Orleans’ cultural economy and local government for The Lens from 2018 to 2022.
Amy Stelly, Opinion Editor
Amy Stelly was The Lens’ Opinion Editor from 2020 to 2023.
Tom Thoren, Open data reporter
Tom Thoren was The Lens’ Open Data Reporter from February 2014 to June 2016.
Janaya Williams, Audio producer in residence
Janaya Williams was The Lens’ audio producer in residence from September 2013 to June 2014.
Jessica Williams, Staff Writer
Jessica Williams covered education from May 2010 to June 2014.
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Tom Wright, Podcast Producer and Engagement Editor
Tom Wright worked for The Lens from 2018 to 2020.
