Board of Directors
Jody Brannon, President
Jody Brannon joined Washington State University in September 2023 to manage the Murrow Local News Fellowship program, designed to place reporters in needy newsrooms around the state.
Brannon, a Seattle native, worked for the Tacoma News Tribune and Seattle Times before moving to the other Washington for nearly 12 years, working also in New York and Phoenix before returning home in 2015. Her background includes leadership positions in digital newspapers (WashingtonPost.com, USAToday.com), magazines (National Journal, National Geographic), a portal (MSN), a standalone emphasizing innovation (News21), mobile (Microsoft and Gannett Digital), search (Bing News) and a think tank focused on sustaining local news (Center for Journalism & Liberty). She served on the Online News Association’s board of directors for 10 years.
As an educator, she has taught at her three alma maters (Seattle U, American and Maryland) as well as Pacific Lutheran. Brannon’s 1999 doctorate focused on the evolution of adapting and producing journalism for the Web: “Maximizing the Medium: Assessing Impediments to Performing Multimedia Journalism at Three News Websites: ABC News, NPR and USA TODAY.”
Randy Diamond, Vice President
Randy Diamond is a veteran reporter who works at the Everett Herald, where he covers Boeing, aerospace and other business topics. He is also a freelance travel writer and pens a regular column for SFGATE in California on the San Francisco hotels and tourism industry. He has worked for the New York Daily News, the Bergen Record in Northern New Jersey, the Antonio Express-News, the Sacramento Bee and for a trade publication called Pensions & Investments.
Tim Gruver, Secretary
Tim Gruver is a reporter for The Washington Observer covering labor, housing, and lobbying at the Washington Legislature.
A graduate of the University of Washington, Tim Gruver reported for Politico’s 2017 Journalism Institute and is the recipient of the 2017 Pioneer Award for News Reporting and the 2016 Deborah Kaplan Memorial Award for “story with a strong writing style.” His work has also appeared in The Oregonian and the Portland Mercury.
He was also a statehouse reporter and 2020 Poynter-Koch Media Fellow at the Center Square.
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’s office is in downtown Snohomish and it commenced publication more than 125 years ago.
Alex Bruell, Past President
Alex Bruell has worked at daily and weekly newspapers in Seattle, Longview, Enumclaw, Federal Way and Vashon. Currently an advisor for student journalists at the University of Washington Tacoma, he spends his free time writing weird stories and exploring the great outdoors.
Taylor Mirfendereski, Board Member
Taylor Mirfendereski is a special projects reporter at KING 5 in Seattle, focusing on digital storytelling. She uses video, photos, text, graphics, and emerging digital tools to produce multimedia stories that take a deep dive into complex issues – from the nationwide heroin crisis to the sex trafficking of American women and children.
Prior to moving to the West Coast, Mirfendereski was a digital reporter at WCPO in Cincinnati, where she covered public safety and justice. In 2014, she embedded with the U.S. military in Afghanistan to produce a special report about the military medical teams who treat the country’s most severely wounded soldiers.
Mirfendereski is a longtime SPJ member, who served two terms on the group’s National Board of Directors. She also led the SPJ Digital community and was the president of Ohio University’s SPJ chapter.
Renee Raketty, Board Member
Renee Raketty is a journalist with over two decades of experience. Her passion for the craft began with her high school newspaper and, later, completed assignments for the Mirror, a Seattle Times-owned teen newspaper. However, she cut her teeth as a staff writer and managing editor of the Seattle Gay News (SGN).
In addition to the SGN, she has written for the Seattle Gay Standard, Capitol Hill Seattle blog, Tacoma Weekly, Unite Seattle Magazine, and dozens of (now defunct) websites. She also holds the position of Field Producer for Malcontent News. In addition to the SPJ, she is a member of the Trans Journalists Association and the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists.
She has extensive knowledge of issues of importance to the LGBTQIA+ community, having covered a wide range of stories: legislation in Olympia, marriage equality, and Supreme Court decisions. More recently, she is best known for her interviews with Dr. Anthony Fauci and for her coverage of the Seattle protests for racial justice. Raketty makes frequent appearances on podcasts and local media, such as KUOW’s Week in Review.
Raketty hopes to use her post on the board of the SPJ’s Western Washington Pro Chapter to highlight the perspectives of Seattle’s diverse media landscape and foster accurate portrayals of the region’s transgender community of which she is a part.
Nicole Jennings, Board Member
Nicole Jennings worked as a journalist in the Seattle area for seven years, most recently as a broadcast reporter at KIRO Radio from 2020-2023. She is currently the assistant director for communications at Seattle University School of Law and editor of the school’s Lawyer Magazine. Nicole got her journalism start writing for her hometown newspaper, the La Conner Weekly News, while studying at Western Washington University (class of 2015). As a student at WWU, Nicole majored in history, minored in German and French, studied abroad in Austria, and was part of the Honors Program. In between college and joining the workforce, Nicole spent a Fulbright year teaching English in two high schools in Salzburg, Austria.
Despite living abroad, Nicole, who was born and raised in Mount Vernon, is a true Puget Sounder (she met JP Patches, remembers cheering on Ichiro during his first season, and can tell you where she was during the Nisqually Earthquake – in her 2nd grade math class). In whatever spare time she has, Nicole enjoys reading historical fiction, running, going to the theatre, swimming and sailing in the summer, skiing in the winter, and travelling at any time of year.
Agueda Pacheco Flores, Board Member
Agueda Pacheco Flores has worked as a journalist in Seattle for more than the past decade. She’s previously been a staff writer for The Seattle Times and Crosscut. In 2019, Agueda had a hand in relaunching the local Pacific Northwest chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
As a freelance writer, she’s continued to write about art, culture, and the Latine diaspora for local as well as national publications. She’s currently a social media manager for the South Seattle Emerald. In her free time she DJs and collects vinyl, reads voraciously, writes horror and enjoys spending time with her toddler.
Eliza Aronson, Board Member
Eliza Aronson is the environment and climate reporter for The Daily Herald in Everett. Before moving to Washington, she worked at Willamette Week in Portland and at Eugene Weekly. Eliza grew up in Eugene and attended the University of Oregon, where she secured concurrent degrees in marine biology and journalism with a minor in science communication. She’s happiest when she gets to combine her two passions and bring out her Xtratuf boots for an assignment.
Taija PerryCook, Board Member
Taija PerryCook has worked on the front lines of the fact-checking industry as a reporter at Snopes since 2023, where she encounters everything from AI slop and satire to disinformation disseminated at the highest levels of government — making complex topics accessible to readers in a rigorous, ever-evolving environment.
Before becoming a fact-checker, she worked as a political reporter for Cascade PBS, living in Olympia, where she traveled across Western Washington to speak with the people behind (or most affected by) legislation. Following her work in the political sphere, she reported for The Jordan Times in Amman
. As a born and raised PNW kid and UW alum, she’s honored to work for the local Seattle journalism community as an SPJ board member. When she isn’t falling down deep, dark internet rabbit holes, she’s either exploring new cities or fixating on a new hobby she’ll have forgotten by next week.