The Intercept Announces New Hires in Reporting and Audience Engagement

The Intercept is proud to announce the expansion of its editorial team with the addition of three reporters and an audience engagement producer. This move reinforces our commitment to delivering incisive, impactful stories and will bolster our capacity to uncover important truths and hold power to account.

Chelsey B. Coombs, our audience engagement producer, is focused on activating communities on social media to ensure our reporting reaches those impacted by the stories we tell. She previously served as a social editor and strategist at the Weather Channel, Vice News, Spectrum Autism Research News, Popular Science, and Futurism.

Matt Sledge covers politics with a focus on Congress and federal agencies. He has written previously for the Houston Landing, The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate, and HuffPost. He has covered Occupy Wall Street, the Chelsea Manning trial, the New Orleans criminal justice system, and local politics in the South.

Jonah Valdez covers politics, U.S. foreign policy, Israel and Palestine, human rights issues, and protest movements for social justice for The Intercept. Previously, he was a staff writer with the Los Angeles Times, where he wrote about environmental justice, gentrification, transportation, labor, pop culture, and the Hollywood industry. His work at The Intercept has highlighted sexual abuse in an Israeli prison, U.S. citizens in Lebanon feeling abandoned by the State Department amid Israel’s invasion, and Columbia University’s crackdown on student activists as they returned to campus this fall.

Jessica Washington covers the intersection of politics and identity. She has previously published in The Guardian, the Washington Post, The Root, Teen Vogue, and other publications. Her recent reporting argues that Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance erroneously blamed undocumented immigrants for the U.S. housing crisis — when the real culprit is corporate greed.