In Spokane, Washington, a religion-news website called FāVS is bucking the national trend away from local news. FāVS is run by Tracy Simmons, a religion reporter and a scholarly assistant professor in the communications department at Washington State University. Simmons describes the ins and outs of covering religion locally and the ubiquity of faith, religion, and spirituality in the stories that continue to shape our world.
Tracy Simmons. Editor and executive director of FāVS. She’s reported on religion for about a decade and has written for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, and Connecticut.
Over the years, Simmons has won several journalism awards, including the 2009 American Academy of Religion’s first-place award for best in-depth reporting on religion, and the 2011 Religion Newswriters Association’s Schachern Award for Online Religion Section of the Year.
