The Fresno Bee adds reporter Melissa Montalvo

The Fresno Bee is adding reporter Melissa Montalvo to its staff as part of the 2021 Report for America reporting corps.

She’ll be covering childhood poverty in the central San Joaquin Valley for The Bee in partnership with CalMatters and its California Divide project, a collaboration involving multiple newsrooms around the state that examines inequalities and the growing gap between the rich and poor.

She replaces reporter Manuela Tobias, who covered poverty on the California Divide project for more than two years.

Montalvo joins Nadia Lopez as Report for America reporters hosted in The Bee’s newsroom.

She previously covered the food and agriculture industries, Indigenous issues, and Mexican American culture as a freelancer for various publications, including Civil Eats and L.A. Taco.

Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.