After a national search, Maria Altman has been selected to lead Harvest Public Media as its new editor. Altman brings extensive experience in leading teams of award-winning reporters and managing coverage of the most important issues facing the region.
Altman was most recently the newscast, business and education editor at St. Louis Public Radio. She joined the station in 2004 as an afternoon newscaster and reporter and later covered the business beat. Prior to that, Altman worked as a reporter at KERA in Dallas and at the statewide Iowa Public Radio network.
As editor, Altman will direct Harvest’s coverage of food, agriculture, the environment and rural life throughout the Midwest and Great Plains, across radio, digital and social media.
“Maria comes to Harvest with the experience and enthusiasm to build on its tradition of excellence in regional reporting and grow the network,” says C.J. Janovy, KCUR’s director of content-journalism. “Communities throughout the region and beyond will benefit from her vision for powerful storytelling and public service journalism.”
"I'm looking forward to working with Harvest's talented reporters and all the member stations to continue this important coverage of agriculture and rural issues,” says Altman. “As a farm kid myself, I'm especially excited to tackle stories about how our food system works and the people involved."
Harvest Public Media is based at KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri. Its partners are St. Louis Public Radio; Illinois Public Media; Nebraska Public Media in Lincoln, Nebraska; Iowa Public Radio; and KOSU in Oklahoma.
Altman joins Harvest Public Media on Monday, Jan. 31.
