The Virginian-Pilot combines a legacy of commitment to community, ethics and strong journalism with the strengths of new technologies and experienced thinkers. Our mission is to inform, inspire and improve the communities we serve. We serve consumers and businesses from eastern North Carolina, through Hampton Roads, Virginia, and west to just outside Richmond. We value innovation and collaboration across a diverse workforce.
Contact the newsroom at [email protected].
For a missed paper, delivery problems or to subscribe, email [email protected], call 757-446-9000 or visit myaccount.pilotonline.com/750/home
Leadership
Kris Worrell, 757-446-2321, [email protected]
Kris Worrell is the Editor-in-Chief of Virginia Media, which includes The Virginian-Pilot, the Daily Press and The Virginia Gazette. A graduate of Kempsville High School in Virginia Beach, she has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s from Syracuse University.
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Kevin Goyette, 757-247-4776, [email protected]
Kevin Goyette is part of the leadership team for The Pilot, Daily Press and Virginia Gazette, and manages the copy desk, visuals, print production and news teams in Williamsburg and the Outer Banks. He has more than two decades of journalism experience as a writer, editor and designer.
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Jeff Reece, 757-286-0832, [email protected]
Jeff Reece is a senior editor in charge of the news teams that cover Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Hampton and Newport News. He has been a journalist for more than 25 years. He has a weakness for cold beer, good movies and bad TV.
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Public safety, education and general assignment
Brian Root, team leader, [email protected]
Brian Root was born and raised in Norfolk. Growing up, he wanted to be the shortstop of the Dodgers or a city editor at The Virginian-Pilot. One out of two ain’t bad. He leads a team of reporters who cover public safety and breaking news.
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Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, [email protected]
Peter Dujardin has been a reporter at the Daily Press for more than 20 years. He has mostly covered courts and criminal justice issues for the past 14 years. That includes policing issues, and criminal and civil cases in both state and federal courts.
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Jane Harper, 757-222-5097, [email protected]
Jane Harper covers courts and crime in Virginia Beach for The Virginian-Pilot. A native of Southeast Texas, she earned her journalism degree from The University of Texas, and worked at papers in Texas and Maryland before moving to Norfolk in 1994.
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Toni Odejimi, [email protected]
Toni Odejimi is an education reporter for The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press. A Georgia native, she previously covered education for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and graduated from Georgia State University with a B.A. in journalism.
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Gavin Stone, [email protected]
Gavin Stone is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He graduated from N.C. State University with a degree in communication media and went on to cover local government, crime and whatever else came up in the Sandhills region of North Carolina. A native of eastern N.C., he enjoys watching movies he’s never seen and black coffee.
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Business and entertainment
Tara Bozick, team leader, 757-247-4741, [email protected]
Tara Bozick is a team leader for The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press and the editor of Inside Business, The Hampton Roads Business Journal. The Gloucester native joined the Daily Press in 2012 after reporting for the Danville Register & Bee and the Victoria Advocate in Victoria, Texas.
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Rekaya Gibson, [email protected]
Rekaya Gibson is the food & beverage reporter for The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press. As a freelance writer, she has contributed content to Cuisine Noir magazine, The Spruce Eats, HuffPost and various lifestyle magazines.
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Patty Jenkins, [email protected]
Patty Jenkins is an editorial assistant in the features department at The Virginian-Pilot.
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Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-652-5836, [email protected]
Sandra J. Pennecke is a reporter for Inside Business. She began writing for The Virginian-Pilot in 1999 as a correspondent and joined the staff in 2016.
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Erica Smith, [email protected]
Erica Smith is a features copy editor. She came to Hampton Roads as a news copy and layout editor for the afternoon Ledger-Star. She’s been a slot editor; Pilot copy desk chief; night coordinating editor; editor of The Compass and other sections; senior news copy editor; Distinction copy editor; and books editor.
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Colin Warren-Hicks, [email protected]
Colin Warren-Hicks is a features reporter for The Virginian-Pilot, covering arts and entertainment. A North Carolina native, he graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill before earning a journalism degree from NYU. He loves story tips about extraordinary circumstances, eccentrics, has-beens, would-bes and never-wills. Send them his way!
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Government and politics
Andrea Noble, team leader, [email protected]
Andrea Noble leads the team that covers government and politics. She previously worked in Washington, D.C. covering federal policy, law enforcement and the Justice Department, and in Maryland writing about crime and local government. She also worked with a congressional committee as an oversight investigator.
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Natalie Anderson, 757-732-1133, [email protected]
Natalie Anderson covers the cities of Chesapeake and Portsmouth. Previously, she was a local government reporter at the Salisbury Post in North Carolina. She’s also had stops with the Carnegie-Knight News21 program and The Advocate in Baton Rouge. A native Louisianan and Louisiana State University grad, she enjoys seafood, cooking and LSU sports.
Devlin Epding, [email protected]
Devlin Epding covers Newport News and Hampton. He’s originally from Minneapolis, where he began his career and graduated from the University of Minnesota. In his free time, he enjoys making R&B playlists and rooting for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
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Trevor Metcalfe, 757-222-5345, [email protected]
Trevor Metcalfe covers Norfolk for The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press. He’s written about mastodon bones, nonprofits, city development projects and everything in between. In his spare time, he enjoys birding and attending to his pet cat.
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Eliza Noe is a general assignment reporter, focusing on science topics and the city of Virginia Beach. Previously, she covered drought, wildfires and local government at several newspapers across Colorado’s Western Slope. She’s a native of the Mississippi hill country and a proud graduate of Ole Miss.
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Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, [email protected]
Stacy Parker covers Virginia Beach government, tourism and development. She’s a Virginia Beach native and a University of Maryland graduate who began her career in journalism as a teen correspondent for The Virginian-Pilot years ago.
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Kate Seltzer, [email protected]
Kate Seltzer covers state politics and government. She received her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and previously worked as an investigative reporter with Connecticut Public Radio. Off the clock, she enjoys cooking and jogging. She also roots for the Boston Red Sox and enjoys that sometimes.
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The Virginia Gazette and Tidewater Review
Kim O’Brien Root, team leader, [email protected]
Kim O’Brien Root is the editor of the Virginia Gazette and Tidewater Review. Born a Yankee, she grew up as an Army brat and earned her journalism degree from the University of New Hampshire before settling in Virginia. She’s been a journalist for more than 25 years, writing for publications around the state, including the Daily Press, the Roanoke Times and the Daily Progress.
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James W. Robinson, [email protected]
James W. Robinson, originally from Hopewell, is a 2014 graduate of Tidewater Community College Portsmouth and a 2017 Virginia Commonwealth University graduate. He previously reported at the Suffolk News-Herald.
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Sports
Jami Frankenberry, team leader, 757-446-2376, [email protected]
Jami Frankenberry, sports editor, directs coverage for The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press, including the sports department’s web sites and social media. An ODU grad, he was a sports writer at The Winchester (Va.) Star before joining The Pilot in 2000.
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Sonny Dearth, 757-247-4640, [email protected]
Sonny Dearth is a native of Newport News and has worked at the Daily Press since 1989. He grew up in the Richmond area, has played tennis since age 8 (including four years at JMU) and has been a part of the Virginia tennis scene for decades.
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Trevyn Gray, 757-390-9206, [email protected]
Trevyn Gray covers Norfolk State and Hampton athletics, plus high school soccer — because juggling multiple things at once keeps life interesting. A University of Georgia graduate, he sometimes enjoys watching Georgia/Atlanta sports. He also loves trying new foods and spending time with family when he can.
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David Hall, 757-446-2367, [email protected]
Covering the Norfolk Tides (the Baltimore Orioles’ Triple-A affiliate), U.Va. football and basketball and Norfolk State basketball for The Virginian-Pilot since 2013. Formerly: Eastern N.C., ECU beat writer, Carolina League.
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Marty O’Brien, 757-247-4963, [email protected]
Marty O’Brien has reported for more than 21 years in Hampton Roads. He primarily covers high school sports and Langley Speedway in Hampton. In his spare time, he’s a lover of Kentucky basketball.
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Larry Rubama, 757-446-2273, [email protected]
Larry Rubama is a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot. He joined The Pilot in 1999 after writing for The (Ind.) Journal-Gazette. A former track athlete at Ohio University, he became a sports reporter so he could tell other athletes’ stories.
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David Teel is a longtime Virginia sports writer and columnist. He’s a member of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame and has won the National Sports Media Association’s Virginia Sportswriter of the Year award a record 15 times.
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Opinion
Brian Colligan, 757-446-2126, [email protected]
Brian Colligan is the opinion editor of The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press. He is the recipient of the 2016 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Editorial Writing and the 2016 Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership. A graduate of Virginia Tech and East Carolina University, he serves on the Virginia Coalition for Open Government Board of Directors.
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Beth Roughton, [email protected]
Beth Roughton is a copy editor for the opinion sections of The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press. Beth previously worked as a production editor for the Daily Press. A N.C. native, she is a graduate of East Carolina University.
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Visuals
L. Todd Spencer, team leader, [email protected]
L. Todd Spencer is the photo director for The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press. He is a 1993 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Photography. He became a staff photographer with The Virginian-Pilot in 2000.
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Stephen M. Katz, [email protected]
Stephen M. Katz is a photographer with The Virginian-Pilot.
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Billy Schuerman, [email protected]
Billy Schuerman was born and raised in Houston, Texas. He attended the University of Mississippi for his undergraduate degree and then Ohio University to work on his masters degree in photojournalism. When he isn’t taking photos, you can find him riding his bike or watching for birds.
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Kendall Warner, [email protected]
Kendall Warner joined the team in 2022. She a native of the commonwealth, born and raised in Northern Virginia, and is a 2019 graduate of Western Kentucky University’s photojournalism program. Her passions include her cats, bearded dragon, plants, antiques and local coffee shops.
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Audience
Sean Kennedy, team leader, [email protected]
Sean Kennedy directs the audience team at The Virginian-Pilot. He enjoys plain hamburgers and spicy stories.
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John Buzbee, [email protected]
John Buzbee is a member of the audience team of The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press. He’s a proud Louisiana native and tortured fan of the LSU Fighting Tigers and New Orleans Saints. He adamantly believes in the impact of local journalism.
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Isabelle Lichtenstein, [email protected]
Isabelle Lichtenstein is a digital producer for The Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press. In her free time, she loves over-analyzing media and watching stand-up comedy.
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Macy Friend, [email protected]
Macy Friend is an audience editor working at the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot. When she’s not at work, she enjoys spending time with family, running and volunteering as a camera operator at Water’s Edge Church.
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Presentation and copy desk
Ashley Bermudez, [email protected]
Ashley Maria Bermudez is a copy editor for The Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press and Virginia Gazette. She graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Central Florida in 2022 and likes to read and cook Nicaraguan food. The Miami native also enjoys listening to her dad and brother rant about sports.
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Joe Kacik, 757-222-5435, [email protected]
Joe Kacik has been a sports copy/layout editor at The Virginian-Pilot since 2006.
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Matt Logan, [email protected]
Matthew Logan is a copy editor and designer at The Virginian-Pilot.
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Clyde Whiteman, [email protected]
Clyde Whiteman Jr. has experience as a copy editor and page designer in the sports and news departments. He enjoys watching sports, bowling and going to the gym.
