Ashley Hiruko
President
Ashley Hiruko, a Western Washington University graduate, is a journalist at KUOW Public Radio. She’s the winner of multiple WNPA awards and enjoys exploring the intricacies of the systems in power and inequalities that exist within them.
Her involvement with SPJ started with her college chapter, where she planned events and helped bring speakers before other student journalists to cultivate a growing community of aspiring writers and photographers.
As a professional, she’s focused her reporting on the diverse communities within the western side of our state. As a woman of Mexican and Japanese descent, Ashley is an advocate for supporting people of color in the field.
Chetanya Robinson
Vice president
Chetanya Robinson is a freelance journalist and managing editor at the International Examiner newspaper in Seattle’s Chinatown International District. He is passionate about the importance and potential of hyper-local, community journalism.
Born and raised in Seattle, he has written for several local publications and spent a summer interning for a newspaper in Sierra Leone. He served as secretary for University of Washington SPJ chapter for a year. Most recently he reported a series funded by the Solutions Journalism Network’s first Renewing Democracy grant about the challenges facing Northwest Chinatowns. In his spare time he enjoys photography, travel and cooking.
Michael Whitney
Treasurer
Michael Whitney is the editor of the Snohomish County Tribune weekly newspaper in Snohomish. He has reported on Snohomish, Monroe and Everett issues with the Tribune since 2008, covering everything from city government to schools to food banks to regional economic growth. He lives in Monroe with Stephanie and a laundry list of animals, including a flock of backyard chickens.
The Tribune is a rare, independently owned newspaper; its office is in downtown Snohomish and it commenced publication more than 125 years ago.
Josh Farley
Secretary
Josh Farley is the military affairs reporter at the Kitsap Sun in Bremerton. He created and anchors the Beat Blast, the Sun’s weekly news video, and the Story Walk, a monthly experience that takes readers to the people and places making the news. He also started the Bridging Bremerton festival, a daylong event that highlights history and culture in the city.
Farley previously covered city hall and criminal justice at the Sun, where he started in 2005. He’s a graduate of Saint Mary’s College of California, where he was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, the Collegian.
Katie Gillespie
Past President
Kaitlin Gillespie is the education reporter for The Columbian, where she reports on K-12 schools as well as area colleges.
In her role, she’s uncovered elevated radon levels and structurally unsound roofs at school campuses, dived into complex state data to report on the challenges low-income children face from their first day of kindergarten, and offered an intimate portrait of families recovering from the suicides of their children.
Prior to that, she was the education reporter with the Redding Record-Searchlight in Redding, Calif., where her work on kindergarten readiness was recognized with a statewide first place Better Newspapers Contest award.
She also helped launch Washington News Nerds, a data training workshop for women and gender non-binary journalists.
In her spare time, Kaitlin enjoys exploring Vancouver and Portland’s restaurants, hiking in the Columbia River Gorge and taking photos of her cat.
Susannah Frame
Board Member
Susannah Frame is the Chief Investigative Reporter at KING 5. Her stories have exposed many wrongs, including government waste, real estate fraud, homeland security breaches, civil rights violations of the disabled, and the mismanagement of nuclear waste. Frame’s investigations have led to changes in public policy, congressional and Dept. of Justice investigations, federal indictments and created new state laws.
Frame is on the Board of Directors for the Society of Professional Journalists, Western Washington Chapter, and is a frequent lecturer for groups such as the Society of Professional Journalists, the Washington State Bar Association, Rotary, and the University of Washington Department of Communication.
Frame has also won many journalism and civic awards for reporting in the public interest.