A plaque with the words “forever together” hangs over Vonda and John Robinson’s headboard in their Nickelsville, Virginia, bedroom. It is a promise that coal mining makes hard to keep. Photo by Karen Kasmauski
This project was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Over the last year of the Trump administration, the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO documented how federal policies are rapidly reshaping daily life. Yet the consequences of these decisions made in Washington reach into our homes, our livelihoods and our sense of what tomorrow might hold.
In Amelia County, farmer Kenney Barnard brings in a soybean harvest without knowing whether he can afford another season. Tanna Price, whose career took her around the world working on economic development, struggles to support her family after losing her job with USAID. In Southwest Virginia, Vonda and John Robinson fight for miners and their families as black lung steals John’s breath.
In Franklin, Dr. Dana Stallings works to keep patients healthy as they lose coverage and her clinic faces mounting financial pressure. At Culpeper’s food pharmacy, neighbors put fresh food into the hands of people who need it to manage their illnesses. And Clara Elliott, a transgender firearms instructor, helps people learn to protect themselves and feel safer in their communities.
Together, these stories ask us to consider what Virginians are living through, what they stand to lose and how federal policies impact communities.
Stories in this series
Contributors
Kunle Falayi
Designer and staff writer
Kunle Falayi is a data journalist at the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO, combining investigative reporting, data analysis and visual storytelling. His career spans Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States, including work for the BBC, The Telegraph and The Arizona Republic. He also teaches journalism at the University of Richmond.
Louis Hansen
Senior editor
Louis Hansen is senior editor of the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO. A former Virginian-Pilot investigative reporter and John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, he has covered government, criminal justice, military affairs and the housing crisis. His reporting and editing on Uprooted, a collaboration with ProPublica examining the displacement of Black communities by Virginia’s public universities, earned national recognition and helped spur the creation of a state commission.
Karen Kasmauski
Photojournalist
Karen Kasmauski is a photographer, filmmaker and educator whose work explores health, the environment and the experiences of people living through change. During two decades working with National Geographic, she produced 25 major stories for the magazine. Her books include Impact: From the Front Lines of Global Health and Nurse: A World of Care.
Joanne Levine
Writer
Joanne Levine is an award-winning journalist whose career began in Moscow, where she covered the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped launch The Moscow Times. She reported internationally for ABC News and became Al Jazeera English’s founding head of documentary for North and South America. Her work across video, audio and multimedia has earned Emmy and Ambie awards.
Elizabeth McGowan
Staff writer
Elizabeth McGowan covers the environment and energy for the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO. She shared the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting at InsideClimate News for an investigation into an oil spill along Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. Her reporting follows how government and industry decisions affect communities and the landscapes they call home.
Lucian Perkins
Photojournalist
Lucian Perkins is an independent photographer and filmmaker who spent more than two decades at The Washington Post. His coverage of poverty in Washington and the conflict in Kosovo earned two Pulitzer Prizes, and his photograph of a child fleeing war in Chechnya won World Press Photo of the Year. His work ranges from intimate accounts of daily life to international conflict and displacement.
Landon Shackelford
Photojournalist
Landon Shackelford is a photojournalist whose work explores community, identity and belonging, from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to Ghana. His reporting on people experiencing homelessness in Harrisonburg earned first-place honors for feature writing and photo storytelling from the Virginia Press Association. His photographs have also appeared in the Washington Blade.
Christopher Tyree
Project editor, writer and photographer
Christopher Tyree is the senior director of the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism and a writer, photographer and filmmaker with more than 30 years of experience. His reporting has taken him from Virginia’s backroads to conflict zones around the world, with work appearing in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC and National Geographic, among others. Across his work, he seeks to build trust, reveal what is often missed and help people see one another more clearly.
Carolyn Van Houten
Photojournalist
Carolyn Van Houten is an independent photojournalist based in Washington, D.C., whose work examines how policy, climate and conflict shape people’s lives. Previously a staff photographer at The Washington Post, she shared the newspaper’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for its coverage of climate change. Her honors also include the Robert Capa Gold Medal and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.