Aspen Public Radio is looking to 2022 with an important goal: growing the organization’s newsroom. Current openings include a Broadcast Journalist to cover Arts & Culture, as well as a General Assignment Broadcast Journalist to join reporters Halle Zander and Eleanor Bennett, who is transitioning into a feature reporting role in addition to anchoring Morning Edition.
Bennett currently serves as “the voice” of Aspen Public Radio during the station’s highest-rated daypart, from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., Monday through Friday. She is a producer and radio journalist who graduated from Middlebury College in 2015. Prior to her time at Aspen Public Radio, Bennett covered issues of climate justice and women's empowerment for SiriusXM Radio in New York City. In 2019, she served as producer of Aspen Public Radio’s teen-focused podcast, Gen Z Tea.
During her time at Aspen Public Radio, Bennett has reported on a wide range of important issues, including interviewing local DACA recipients, to covering the Valley’s COVID-19 eviction and housing crisis, to producing audio postcards featuring hungry goats fighting climate change on the Western Slope. Her recent story, Aspen trees are threatened by climate change, but some people say there are ways to preserve future groves, was part of the station’s popular three-part news series, In The Woods: Trees and Climate Change In The Roaring Fork Valley. Bennett also pioneered the station’s Outdoor Report, which features content about recreation, wildlife, and environmental causes in the Valley, as well as the station’s Local Newscast, a weekday, on-demand compilation of news for Aspenites on-the-go.
Halle Zander joined the team full-time in September 2021. She has worked as an educator at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies and at the Andy Zanca Youth Empowerment program, where she taught youth radio and managed a weekly public affairs show. She was a freelance broadcast journalist for both KDNK and Aspen Public Radio before joining the APR staff full-time.
“Aspen Public Radio is proud to provide important and necessary regional, national, and international news and information throughout our broadcast, but being able to thoughtfully expand our local news team is a key part of our organization’s overall strategic plan,” says Executive Director Breeze Richardson. “This is an opportunity for us to proactively serve our vibrant Valley better as it, too, grows and changes.”
Stay up-to-date with Aspen Public Radio’s current job openings.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated on January 10, 2022.