
Alejandra Martinez
Dallas Accountability ReporterAlejandra Martinez is a reporter for KERA and The Texas Newsroom through Report for America (RFA). She's covering the impact of COVID-19 on underserved communities and the city of Dallas.
Within her first year at KERA, Ale won a 2021 regional Edward R. Murrow award in continuing coverage for her reporting on Shingle Mountain, a monstrous 100-foot-tall pile of waste dumped in a community of color. Her work shed light on the effects of environmental racism in the southeast Dallas community of Floral Farms. She rigorously covered it for months, from protests about its existence to its removal.
Before joining KERA, Ale was a producer at WLRN, South Florida’s NPR station where she covered immigration, marginalized communities, and the local arts scene. She would book, write, and produce stories for and the station’s daily talk show, “Sundial,” and she was part of Public Radio International’s (PRI) “Every 30 Seconds” election project, a collaborative public media reporting project tracing the young Latino electorate leading up to the 2020 presidential election and beyond.
Alejandra is no stranger to Texas. A native Texan, she began her broadcast career working with KUT, Austin’s NPR station, first as an intern and later a producer. Ale participated in NPR’s Next-Generation Radio project, a week-long journalism boot camp, where she covered Houston’s recovery post-Hurricane Harvey in 2018.
She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism in 2017.
If you’d like to connect with Ale or simply see what she’s reading about, listening to or covering follow her on Twitter — @alereports.
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The City of Dallas is planning to lower its tax rate. Other North Texas cities also are looking to lessen the pain for homeowners who've seen their appraisals increase.
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Dallas residents will see higher water and trash pick-up fees if the city council approves the proposed $4.5 billion budget.
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Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax has unveiled a proposed $4.5 billion city budget. He wants to hire and retain more police officers, lower property taxes, and focus on equity and environmental justice.
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People in Dallas seeking an abortion could avoid a criminal record if the city council approves a resolution passed Tuesday.
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West Dallas residents say the fight to close an asphalt factory that pollutes their air is far from over, even though GAF has already promised to leave the community.
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Businesses in Deep Ellum, other entertainment districts, working with city officials to tackle crimeBusiness owners in Dallas entertainment districts are concerned about crime. This has prompted a local nonprofit to create a space where city leaders and business owners can work together to tackle the problem.
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West Dallas residents won a victory in their battle against industrial pollution this week. The GAF asphalt shingle factory has told residents it is leaving their neighborhood after more than 75 years of operation.
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Janie Cisneros hits a bright blue and lime green paper maché piñata with — a white letters that read GAF. That's the name of the company that operates a 75-year-old factory operating next to her house on Singleton Boulevard in West Dallas. The piñata swings from side to side while mariachi music plays.
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Dallas police officials are looking for more recruits — even if it takes a trip to Puerto Rico.
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Dallas city council has signed off on a map that impacts on who has voting power and who council members represent. The new district boundaries lines will last for a decade.
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Dallas resident Julianna Bradley YeeFoon is using her anger to fuel her activism by spurring to action to help Texans seeking abortions get them.
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Dallas event promoters who follow the rules say a new ordinance to crack down on unpermitted events will also hurt their business.
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For many young Latinx girls, their 15th birthday is special. Their families plan their Quinceañera celebration for months, sometimes years, but this year, the pandemic wiped out many of those dreams.
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Community activists are demanding the city allocate more funding to parks, libraries and cultural centers — services that have already suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Calderón and her husband decided to self-publish a bilingual children’s book called, Behind My Mask or Detrás de Mi Cubrebocas.