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Expertise & Skills 

Dana has expertise in writing about the following subject areas:

  • History and impact of Native American children at boarding schools run by the U.S. government and churches over 150 years.

    • She and her team documented the widespread sexual abuse of more than 1,000 Native students and more than 3,100 deaths of children, more than three times the number reported by the U.S. Interior Department in its own investigation.

  • Disaster, crisis reporting in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, and a school shooting in Minnesota.

  • Criminal justice, police departments, and local, state, and federal court systems.

  • National security issues, including the defense industries biggest companies (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing).

  • Coverage of Pentagon spending, government contractors in Iraq.

  • D.C. area governments, the regional economy, housing, job market and unemployment trends.

  • National hospitality industry, covering such major hotel brands as Marriott and Hilton.

  • Collapse of auto industry and U.S. government bailout.

  • Commercial real estate development, including land deals and the development of Nationals stadium and D.C. convention center.

  • Transportation, including covering the Washington area’s huge Metro rail and bus system that serves six million people in the region.

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Dana Hedgpeth, left, with journalists – Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, Shannon Shaw Duty, Pauly Denetclaw and PR executive Kathy Baird at a movie showing.

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Dana Hedgpeth, far right, leading a panel discussion of documentary The American Southwest with Indigenous activist Quannah Chasinghorse at the Environmental Film Festival in D.C.

Dana’s skills include:

  • Oversee coverage in a diverse and large-scale media market.

  • Adept at juggling resources and working on small and large teams and meets tight deadlines.

  • Incorporates, listens to, and values every team member’s views and insights.

  • Skilled at writing, editing, and producing online content for an audience of more than 3 million daily viewers.

  • Innovate and work with design and graphics teams to create interactive, reader-friendly ways to storytell that result in record viewership of nearly half a million readers on projects.

  • Utilize AI tools to effectively and efficiently scour through hundreds of thousands of pages of documents so can digest a complex issue and focus on a poignant explanation for viewers.

  • Ability to analyze and synthesize financial and legal documents.

  • Expertise in areas of coverage, including economics, transportation, local governments, national security, federal procurement, and criminal justice. Plus, knowledgeable in the defense, manufacturing, hospitality, and real estate industries.

  • Speak conversational Spanish. Read and write in Spanish proficiently.

  •  Proficient in these programs: Airtable, Excel, Facebook, Instagram, LexisNexis, PowerPoint, PRNewswire, Quark, Reddit, Snapchat, Twitter, and Photoshop.

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