David Francis
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
David Francis is the retired Executive Vice President and Publisher of NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, working for NOLA Media Group and its predecessor, The Times-Picayune, for more than 24 years.
David previously served as a Regional Business Planner and Manager of Financial Operations for Pepsi-Cola and Audit Manager for Deloitte & Touche.
Terry Baquet
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Terry Baquet is a 28-year veteran of NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune and a lifelong New Orleanian. He served as Sunday Editor and was the Page 1 Editor during the paper’s Katrina coverage which won two Pulitzer Prizes in breaking news and public service.
In 2012, Terry was named Managing editor/Director of Print essentially overseeing all editorial decisions for the newspaper’s print edition and also supervising the layout and production for four other newspapers in the Advance Publications chain. He also ran The Times-Picayune’s community engagement efforts.
He has served on the boards of Lede New Orleans and Spaceship Media.
Terry is from an old New Orleans family that is deeply rooted in the city’s jazz and restaurant history. He graduated from Hampton Institute in Virginia, grew up in the 7th Ward and continues to live there today.
Tim Morris
MANAGING EDITOR
Tim Morris is a 45-year veteran of news organizations in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, New Jersey and Louisiana. He joined The Times-Picayune in New Orleans in 1992 as night metro editor and became the state/political editor in 1995, overseeing the newspaper’s bureaus in Washington, D.C., and Baton Rouge. After serving in various newsroom leadership positions, he became an opinions columnist for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune in 2016. He joined the Houston Chronicle editorial board in 2019.
In his 27-year career at The Times-Picayune, Tim was project editor for an eight-part series that won the newspaper its first Pulitzer Prize in 1997 and a five-day series that was a 1999 Pulitzer finalist for national reporting. He was part of The Times-Picayune staff that won two Pulitzer Prizes in 2006 for coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
Lottie Joiner
ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR
Lottie Joiner, an award-winning journalist with more than two decades of experience covering issues that impact underserved and marginalized communities, is joining Verite’s newsroom leadership team as assistant managing editor.
She is the former editor-in-chief of The Crisis Magazine, the official publication of the NAACP. During her tenure at The Crisis, the quarterly journal won several national awards for its coverage of social justice issues, Black history, African American art and culture.
Lottie’s work has been published in a number of media outlets including The Washington Post, USA Today, The Daily Beast, Time.com and TheAtlantic.com. She has also written for a number of minority-focused publications including Ebony and Jet magazines, Essence, NBCBLK, The Undefeated, The Grio and TheRoot.
Charles Maldonado
ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR-INVESTIGATIONS
Charles Maldonado comes to Verite from The Lens, an award-winning nonprofit investigative news website founded in New Orleans in 2009. Charles worked at The Lens for more than nine years, serving as a reporter and editor.
As a staff writer at The Lens, he reported on New Orleans city government and criminal justice. His 2017 series on the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office’s use of fraudulent witness subpoenas resulted in the end of the practice — which had been in use by area prosecutors for decades — as well as a major federal civil rights suit filed by the ACLU and the Civil Rights Corps.
Charles previously worked as a reporter at Gambit, the New Orleans alternative newsweekly, and newspapers in Tennessee, New York and his hometown of Detroit, Michigan.
Dylan Penny
DIRECTOR OF PEOPLE AND CULTURE
Dylan Penny is a Human Resources professional with 20 years of experience in various industries. Dylan started his career in Human Resources working at Target Corporation, where he held multiple roles throughout the organization. After leaving Target, Dylan spent four years at Pepsi-Cola where he led the HR function for multiple regions. Dylan joined NOLA Media Group in 2012 where he was the Senior Human Resources Manager for seven years. While at NOLA Media Group, Dylan led the overhaul of its HR processes to include performance management, benefits, and training. After leaving NOLA Media Group, Dylan held the role of Director of Human Resources for KIPP New Orleans, a nonprofit Charter School system.
Roxie E. Wilson
AUDIENCE MANAGEMENT SPECIALIST
Roxie joins Verite as the Audience Management Specialist. She is a native New Orleanian who holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Dillard University and an MS in Marketing & Communications from Loyola University New Orleans. Roxie has a background in social media management and strategy and is a content creator. She is also a lover and supporter of the arts, serving on the board of the Black Girl Giggles Comedy Festival.
Michael Isaac Stein
SENIOR REPORTER
Before joining Verite, Michael Isaac Stein spent five years as an investigative reporter at The Lens, a nonprofit New Orleans news publication, covering local government, housing and labor issues.
During his time at the Lens, Stein consistently produced award-winning work — exposing power company Entergy’s use of paid actors to gain approval for a new gas plant, covering the mayor’s attempt to severely cut funding for public libraries and tracking the rapid expansion of the city’s government surveillance apparatus.
Before working at The Lens, Stein was a reporter for WWNO New Orleans Public Radio and freelanced for various national publications including The Intercept, The New Republic and Bloomberg’s CityLab.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.
Rich Webster
SENIOR REPORTER
Experienced investigative reporter Rich Webster joins Verite after spending the past two and a half years as a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. He investigated allegations of abuse against the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and claims of racial and economic inequities within Louisiana’s Road Home recovery program following Hurricane Katrina.
Webster previously was a member of The Times-Picayune’s investigative team, reporting on numerous special projects including “The Children of Central City,” an in-depth look at childhood trauma through the lens of a youth football team; “A Fragile State,” a multi-part series on Louisiana’s mental health care system; and “Dying at OPP,” which examined the deaths of inmates in Orleans Parish Prison.
Webster also covered the criminal justice system and the Covid-19 pandemic for The Washington Post, ProPublica and The Guardian.
Michelle Liu
REPORTER
Experienced reporter Michelle Liu joins the growing staff at Verite as part of its mission to cover issues facing underserved communities in New Orleans.
She worked previously for The Associated Press in South Carolina and was an inaugural corps member with the Report for America initiative. She also covered statewide criminal justice issues for Mississippi Today, Verite’s sister newsroom, from 2018 to 2020. Her work at Mississippi Today has been recognized regionally and nationally, including by the Society of Professional Journalists, the Online Journalism Awards and the John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Awards.
Michelle grew up in Texas and holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale College.
Nigell Moses
NEWSROOM FELLOW
New Orleans native Nigell Moses is a multimedia creative and a lover of the arts. Her creativity began as co-founder and videographer of R.E.B.E.L Local Inc. creating content for local artists and entrepreneurs. Moses graduated summa cum laude from Xavier University of Louisiana with a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication.
She is a published contributing writer, with stories in The Louisiana Weekly and Data News Weekly.
As a member of the Verite News fellowship, Nigell hopes to use her native flair and lived experiences to tell the untold narratives of underrepresented communities in New Orleans.