Bridge hires Capitol reporter Lauren Gibbons and expands election coverage
Bridge Michigan is pleased to announce the hiring of Lauren Gibbons as a Capitol watchdog reporter, solidifying a politics and government team that continues to expand during this election season.
Gibbons comes to Bridge after eight years of covering the state Capitol, including six for MLive, where she turned her investigative lens on redistricting, the 2016 presidential election and sexual harassment in the state Legislature.
Gibbons also provided distinctive coverage of criminal justice, gender equity, voting access and infrastructure. Before MLive, she covered the state Senate for two years for the MIRS subscription news service. She is a 2021 Statehouse Fellow of the National Press Foundation and has won awards for spot news and investigative reporting.
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Gibbons began at Bridge on Monday, succeeding Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, who is now the Texas Capitol reporter for National Public Radio. She joins capitol watchdog reporters Jonathan Ooosting and Yue Stella Yu in bringing unprecedented resources to this year’s election and Lansing coverage.
In recent weeks, Bridge has launched a political newsletter, a petition drive tracker explaining potential ballot measures and their funding, and produced investigations into candidates and campaign finance.
At Bridge, Gibbons plans issue-based reporting on how redistricting affects state and federal races and the battle for the Michigan Legislature.
More political and government coverage is planned in coming months, including a voter information dashboard of resources about candidates and voting, as well as a partnership with the national nonprofit VoteBeat to hire a shared reporter to cover issues related to voting and access in Michigan.
As always, the goal of the expansion is to produce the state’s best nonpartisan, fact-based reporting and articles that go beyond the rhetoric to show how policy decisions — and politics — affect everyday life.
The additional resources follow the arrival of three other reporters at Bridge this year, fueled by surveys of Bridge readers who repeatedly said they want more of our distinctive political and government coverage.
In the past four years, Bridge’s parent nonprofit, The Center for Michigan, also added reporters and special sections on the environment, health and business at Bridge Michigan, and helped launch BridgeDetroit, a news site that focuses on the City of Detroit.
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