A new full-time reporter has been hired for the Aspen Public Radio Women’s Desk, which was created in 2025 to better understand the status of women through economic, sociocultural, regulatory, technological, and news-making contexts.
Beginning this week, Hannah Weaver will expand this first-of-its-kind radio reporting effort, which is challenging the reality that men remain the vast majority of quoted experts and sources throughout traditional media by intentionally uplifting women’s voices to create a more diverse and inclusive news landscape.
While women make up more than half the population in our country, and worldwide, women are expected to outnumber men within the next 50 years, the underrepresentation of women in news and media results in the perspective of women often missing or misunderstood, whether that’s when reporting on issues of health, education, politics, environment, or the arts.
Funded by women throughout the Roaring Fork Valley who were inspired – and inspired others beyond our region – to create this full-time reporting initiative, the Women’s Desk Network has met throughout the past year to advance awareness about this effort and expand their own understanding of the issues facing women throughout our community. Last September, the Women’s Desk Network sponsored a screening of “She Runs the World” (directed by Perri Peltz and Matthew O’Neill) at the Aspen Film Festival, which won the 2025 Aspen FilmFest Audience Award.
Hannah Weaver previously worked as a reporter for the Lodi News-Sentinel through the California Local News Fellowship, where she covered everything from the region’s struggling wine industry to its rising special education enrollment. While in this role, Weaver also produced audio features for KQED’s statewide radio show “The California Report Magazine.”
Weaver grew up in Seattle, attended Scripps College, and served as editor-in-chief of the Claremont Colleges consortium’s student newspaper where she oversaw a staff of 130 as they covered historic unionization efforts and administrative overturn. She received her master’s in journalism from Columbia University, where she focused on radio reporting and received the school’s Radio Prize for her work. Weaver also received an Institute for Nonprofit News fellowship to work at public radio station KFSK in Southeast Alaska, where she hosted “Morning Edition” and reported in the afternoons. Her features frequently appeared in the statewide “Alaska News Nightly” broadcast, and she received several awards from the Alaska Press Club.
"As an alumna of a historically women’s college, with a background in public radio, and consistent experience reporting on women’s issues, I felt uniquely qualified for this role," shared Weaver.
She continued: "I am drawn to stories centering women, from a magazine article on an unassuming track club that bred Olympians to a radio feature on an Alaska Native civil rights leader’s legacy, I've worked to highlight the unexpected triumphs and ongoing battles along the lines of gender, sexuality and their many intersections."
Inaugural Women’s Desk reporter, Sarah Tory will also continue filing stories for the Women’s Desk in a freelance role.
“I’m incredibly grateful to the whole team at Aspen Public Radio for giving me the opportunity to deepen our coverage of women and I’m excited to hand the reins to Hannah,” says Tory.
During her tenure, Tory provided daily newscast content for Aspen Public Radio’s local airwaves and published more than 48 digital stories to aspenpublicradio.org. In October 2025, she successfully pitched her reporting around the vote to form a special childcare funding tax district here in Colorado to NPR, and the story was aired nationwide on “Morning Edition” ––heard by an estimated 14 million listeners.
Hannah Weaver will be joining a robust local newsroom at Aspen Public Radio, including news director Halle Zander; associate editor and “All Things Considered” host Sage Smiley, Arts & Culture reporter Regan Mertz; Climate reporter Michael Fanelli, Social Justice reporter Eleanor Bennett; and Aspen Daily News reporter Lucy Peterson, who also files stories for the radio station. You can learn more about the Aspen Public Radio team here.
You can hear and read all our Women’s Desk reporting at aspenpublicradio.org/womens-desk.
Aspen Public Radio broadcasts local newscasts and radio features from 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m., Monday through Friday, within national programming along with producing a daily local news podcast each weekday morning and publishing daily to aspenpublicradio.org.
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Aspen Public Radio is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization with the mission to support, nourish, and enrich our community by providing informative, entertaining, and educational radio and digital programming in a reliable and professional manner. Founded in 1980 as Roaring Fork Public Radio Translator, broadcasting from Sy Coleman’s living room in 1981, Aspen Public Radio has now grown into one of the most relied upon news institutions in the Roaring Fork Valley. The station is located in the Red Brick Center for the Arts at 110 E. Hallam Street, Suite 134, Aspen, Colorado.
You can listen to Aspen Public Radio at 91.5FM and 88.9FM, along with other repeater signals depending on location throughout the Roaring Fork Valley, or by streaming the station at aspenpublicradio.org from anywhere in the world.