Molly Born

Molly Born is an Appalachia Reporting Fellow and former Report for America corps member reporting for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Her work with GroundTruth includes our first-ever reporting project in Appalachia, "Stirring the Waters," on the regions clean water crisis. A native of Marion County in north-central West Virginia, Molly attended Fairmont State University and Northwestern University. She spent six years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she won multiple awards covering beats including crime, local government, and education. In pursuit of the story, she has spent the night at a palatial Hare Krishna commune, reported on location from the middle of a four-lane highway, and (politely) commandeered a passing car to hear the verdict in a murder trial. Molly made the transition from print to radio as a Galloway Fellow. Based in Williamson, Mingo County, she covered the state's southern coalfields. Outside of work, Molly enjoys doing Zumba, reading, and exploring new places.

West Virginia

How we uncovered West Virginia’s foster care crisis, despite the state’s lack of transparency

CHARLESTON – If a child has to leave home and enter the foster care system, the hope is...

Rights

West Virginia knows how to keep kids out of foster care. But funding for key programs has been in short supply.

Editor's note: This is Part 3 in a three-part series, investigating West Virginia's foster care system. Read Part...

Rights

Foster kids need families to live with and state social workers to check on them. West Virginia doesn’t have enough of either

Editor's note: This is Part 2 in a three-part series, investigating West Virginia's foster care system. Read Part...

Rights

West Virginia’s reliance on out-of-state group homes leaves some foster kids in unsafe, abusive situations

In early 2015, West Virginia state inspectors visited an all-boys group home in Grove City, Pennsylvania. There were...

Photography

Essential Appalachia

Most days since the COVID-19 pandemic started, Alexis Batausa has laced up his running shoes and headed for...

ON THE GROUND IN ALLEN JUNCTION, WV

A year of giving voice in rural Appalachia

ALLEN JUNCTION, West Virginia — One morning this summer, I found myself standing on the side of the...

Health

‘A Mountain Dew to brush my teeth.’

‘A Mountain Dew to brush my teeth.’: In Southern W.Va., Residents Wary of Water's Health Effects A water...

While covering the teachers' strike in West Virginia, Molly Born ran into people she grew up with. "People I hadn’t seen or thought of in years were suddenly those whose stories I was covering," she writes. (Molly Born/WVPB/GroundTruth)

Rights

Covering the West Virginia teacher strike — and coming home

CHARLESTON, West Virginia — The sea of striking teachers gathered in the Capitol here was dotted with red...