Note that this episode was recorded and produced before the June 30 news broke about the Coast Guard's failure to pursue criminal investigations of a large number of sexual assaults of former students at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. You can read about that here.

Sonner Kehrt is an investigative reporter for The War Horse, a non-profit newsroom covering the military and veterans. She’s based in California and has been a journalist since 2015 and a lecturer at Berkeley since 2018.

Prior to that she served in the United States Coast Guard for 5 years. So she has a military-experience perspective in the work she does.

Sonner talked about her path to journalism, the experience of going to the Coast Guard Academy, and how her military time prepared her for journalism.

She walked us through the different stories she’s done, including ones on being an LGBTQ military member (or parent of an LGBTQ child) in a state where anti-LGBTQ legislation has passed, on the damage done by military burn pits post 2001, some first-person experience stories about her time at the Academy, and a lighter pre-War Horse piece on watching Isle of Dogs with dogs.

Sonner’s advice: Turn every page when reviewing documents

Sonner’s salute: Berkeleyside

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