Jessica Meyers

Journalist | Newsroom Leader | Coach

United States

Award-winning international journalist and newsroom executive with more than a decade of experience transforming complex topics into powerful stories at media organizations, nonprofits and development institutions. Motivating leader and coach with a passion for guiding colleagues in impactful, collaborative work.

Deputy standards and ethics editor at Politico. Former editor-in-chief of Global Press Journal, China correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, national politics reporter for The Boston Globe, tech policy reporter for Politico, education and state politics reporter for The Dallas Morning News, editorial consultant for the World Bank. Lived and worked in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. Obsessive runner, toddler mom and Washingtonian.

Portfolio

Editing

Global Press Journal
11/07/2022
Push for Gold Leaves a Toxic Legacy

MUTARE, ZIMBABWE — The young men brace for the first shock of cold water as they enter the river, easing their way into another day of illegal gold mining. David Mauta and Wisdom Nyakurima, both 18, stand knee-deep in the Odzi River near the eastern Zimbabwe mining city of Mutare and shovel gravel onto a woven mat. They hinge their hopes on finding flakes of shiny gold. But it’s another metal whose dangers they don’t recognize that may have a more lasting impact.

Global Press Journal
05/20/2021
Doors to US Market Swing Open. Can DRC Entrepreneurs Enter?

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - The cocoa industry in this eastern stretch of DRC had all but disappeared when Alexis Kalinda Salumu decided to try and save it. Years of armed conflict had forced farmers to abandon their fields and nearly destroyed production in his home of Walikale, a forested region with thick, juicy soil.

Global Press Journal
12/30/2021
Tradition or Trend? Hollywood Transforms Día de Muertos

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - Even the skeletons looked different this year. Their white frames disappeared under frilly dresses; sunken black eyes glistened with purple eye shadow. The rows of ornate "catrinas" that lined Mexico City's markets hinted at a cultural shift.

Global Press Journal
03/30/2021
'When It Rains ... We Cry': River Submerges Livelihoods

ELEGU, UGANDA - It didn't rain the day 2-year-old Raymond Giga was found submerged in water next to the bed he shared with his mother. But the River Unyama still poured in from the east and swallowed him, says Raymond's mother, Sylvia Gimono, her eyes wet with tears.

Global Press Journal
01/31/2021
Officials Bet on a Country of Turmeric Growers

MANNAR, SRI LANKA - Sanchon Salamon Thuram scours his books on microorganisms, surrounded by garden equipment, a dog and a cat. The house is quiet; the 76-year-old lost his wife several months ago and wanted to die too. But gnarled knubs of turmeric have become his salvation.

Global Press Journal
10/12/2020
Risking Health, Women Forgo Periods to Cut Costs

ZVISHAVANE, ZIMBABWE - Monica Ndlovu pops a white pill into her mouth and chases it with water. She eyes her packet, still full of round brown pills - the ones that would allow her menstrual cycle to start. She can't afford to get her period.

Asia Politics/Economy

Los Angeles Times
01/02/2018
China wants to build an innovation capital by fiat. Can it?

Farmers often stop to stare at the cement trucks running through their cornfields outside this dusty, frigid town south of Beijing. They're watching the destruction of their livelihoods for the promise of a more prosperous future. Chinese President Xi Jinping stood in nearby fields in April to herald a project "crucial for the next millennium."

The Atlantic
01/13/2016
An American-Politics Junkie in China

GUANGZHOU, CHINA - Inside a cramped dorm room on the campus of South China University of Technology, Yin Hao leads an operation to decode American politics. The 29-year-old engineering student records every Sunday news show, listens to podcasts from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow as he walks to work, and scours Mike Allen's "Playbook," a DC-insidery newsletter for Politico.

Los Angeles Times
05/07/2017
In Mekong Delta backwaters, Vietnam vets find peace in a town that war destroyed

Most foreign veterans who arrive in this swampy stretch of the Mekong Delta make their way to the Oasis Hotel. The two-story, pale-yellow building on the Ben Tre River boasts a small pool near the open-air dining area and cold beer. They come looking for solace, something stronger than the support groups and pills.

Los Angeles Times
05/25/2018
P.F. Chang's comes to Shanghai, but can you really sell American Chinese food to the country that...

Nearly two centuries ago, Chinese workers stir-fried an amalgam of home and sold it in America. Last month that legacy returned to China in a steaming pile of fried honey chicken and scallion pancakes. P.F. Chang's, the Scottsdale, Ariz., chain that made its name off American-style Chinese food, just opened its first restaurant in Shanghai on the eighth floor of a high-end mall.

U.S. National Politics

BostonGlobe.com
02/05/2015
Senator Elizabeth Warren's 'no' doesn't deter faithful in Iowa - The Boston Globe

Iowa is on the frontline of the draft Warren movement, a $1.25 million effort funded by liberal groups MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, who have chosen the country's first caucus state as a cornerstone for their push. An event in Fairfield last weekend, one of 11 in Iowa and more than 200 nationwide, embodies the effort: scrappy, earnest, ambitious, and potentially pointless.

BostonGlobe.com
03/02/2015
A less-crusty Sanders tests presidential waters - The Boston Globe

Meet the other Bernie Sanders - the guy who's actually pretty good at retail politics. The one more willing to risk a joke. The one who slaps strangers on the back, pauses for selfies, admits a frustration with Legos, and drops references to Kim Kardashian into his stump speeches.

BostonGlobe.com
05/07/2015
Long-scarred Fall River wary of another trade deal - The Boston Globe

Old mill towns like Fall River, where the scars of previous trade agreements run deep, are the types of places Obama needs to convince that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will boost American jobs rather than devastate them. That's critical to gaining the support of Democratic representatives, who are largely opposed to an upcoming bill the White House considers necessary to propel the deal forward.

BostonGlobe.com
10/12/2014
Gloom in West Virginia coal region ominous for Democrats - The Boston Globe

Here in Mingo County, which has lost hundreds of coal industry jobs, a 12.1 percent unemployment rate leads the state and is twice the national average. As a result, a half-century after John F. Kennedy worked to address West Virginia's poverty and after Democrats have directed billions of dollars in "earmarks" to boost local fortunes, the party faces its biggest challenge here in generations.

BostonGlobe.com
06/04/2015
In effort to fix woes in VA care, Moulton taps own experience - The Boston Globe

"If it wasn't so sad, it would have been comical," Moulton said in an interview as he recounted his VA odyssey. In addition to enduring missing records and computer glitches, Moulton said, he was prescribed the wrong medicine, which in his case did not imperil his health but is in the category of a medical error that can be extremely dangerous in some cases, even fatal.

Tech /Healthcare

BostonGlobe.com
02/19/2015
Group from Mass. helped shift net neutrality fight - The Boston Globe

Fight for the Future, the name Tiffiniy Cheng and her friends bestowed on their group of 30-something dreamers with no office , helped stir an online advocacy movement that swayed the White House, influenced the Federal Communications Commission, and helped defeat the telecommunications industry, one of the most powerful lobbying shops in Washington.