Cara Nixon

Reporter and Graduate Journalism Student

United States

Cara Nixon is a reporter and graduate journalism student currently living in Berkeley, Calif. She graduated in June 2022 with an honors bachelor's degree in political science and applied journalism from Oregon State University and has over four years of print and digital journalism experience. She now attends University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and just finished up an internship with California education news site EdSource. This last school year, she also worked on the Richmond Confidential education beat and the Investigative Reporting Program's Aging in America project.

Prior to coming to California, Nixon worked in both reporter and editor positions at local Corvallis, Ore. newspapers, The Corvallis Advocate and The Daily Barometer. At those publications, she produced hundreds of stories ranging in topic from homelessness and a scandal involving OSU's president to community events and arts and entertainment. While at OSU, she also participated in a photojournalism internship with Chris Johns, former editor-in-chief of National Geographic—an experience which birthed a detailed, longform story about a local homeless man and his daughter.

Nixon's main journalistic passions are covering education and issues which affect low-income and/or rural communities. She is expected to graduate from Berkeley Journalism in May 2024.

Portfolio
Richmond Confidential
11/03/2022
Teacher shortage threatens to crumble popular dual-language schools that WCCUSD built over years

Fourth grade dual-language immersion teacher Wendy Gonzalez has been fighting for bilingual education since 1998, often feeling that the school district treated it as more of an afterthought. A teacher shortage in the West Contra Costa Unified School District has exacerbated the problem, she said, leaving dual-language immersion in a precarious place.