On this episode of The Journalism Salute, Mark Simon is joined by C.J. Janovy. C.J. is the director of content for KCUR, the NPR affiliate in Kansas City, Missouri.

She has previously worked as editor of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt-weekly, and as an editor at Kansas Reflector, a non-profit covering state government in Kansas.

She’s also the author of the book No Place Like Home, Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas. There’s a documentary that serves as a sequel to the book, directed by Kevin Wilmott, who co-wrote Black KkKlansman.

C.J. talked both about her long career as a journalist, both as a writer profiling people like Melissa Ethridge and her current work. She explained her role at KCUR and how she shapes the station’s and the website’s diverse content.

She also talked about her book – about the people she got to meet as she traveled across Kansas and their ongoing battle for equal rights in a conservative state that is rich in great stories of LGBTQ activism.

To learn more about her book, watch the talk she gave to the Kansas Historical Society.

C.J.’s salutes: Nikole Hannah-Jones of The 1619 Project and Randy Shilts, who covered LGBTQ issues for the San Francisco Chronicle

Thank you as always for listening. Please send us feedback at [email protected], visit our website at thejournalismsalute.org and Mark's website (MarkSimonmedia.com) or tweet us at @journalismpod