My name is Chase Hunter and I'm the senior reporter for the Sonoma Index-Tribune. I cover city council, wildfires and housing in Sonoma Valley, in addition to breaking news, crime, and enterprise investigations.
I accepted the job in Sonoma shortly after completing a project investigating the inequalities of the COVID-19 pandemic for News 21, a student reporting project from the Carnegie-Knight Foundation based at Arizona State University. Fun fact, the hiring was so quick, I started the job living in a motel room in Rohnert Park.
I graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2021 where I reported on the 2020 presidential election in Washington, D.C., the Black Lives Matter movement on the streets of Phoenix, youth suicide in Arizona for a documentary with the Cronkite School and community reporting as an intern for the Arizona Republic. I also served as senior reporter and managing editor of the award-winning student media outlet The State Press Magazine.