Five Dubs Podcast
In this episode, Rebecca talks with Kate Cimini, investigations editor at The Baltimore Sun, about her award-winning investigative reporting and life as a journalist. Cimini's series on child welfare at Maryland's Free State Challenge Academy, a National Guard-run program for at-risk youth, won first place in the MDDC/AMARC Foundation contest this year. She walks through how a single news tip led her to uncover the story of Nathaniel, a teenage cadet assaulted in his sleep, and the reporting process that followed: sourcing records requests, tracking down cadets and parents, and building trust with sources who'd lived through trauma.
They also discuss Cimini's path from public school teacher to journalist, how she balances the emotional weight of reporting on people's worst days, and what "service journalism" means in practice, from city council coverage to helping a dying activist raise funeral funds. Cimini closes by reflecting on what she hopes to bring to the Sun's long legacy of investigative work in Baltimore.