Chips Quinn Reporter Spotlight: Mili Mansaray
Posting: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Mili Mansaray is the Senior Editor and Director of Radical Media Initiatives at The Kansas City Defender, where she leads community-driven reporting rooted in justice and accountability. Her work centers Black voices and challenges the traditional norms of journalism, with a focus on uplifting stories that are often ignored or misrepresented by the mainstream media.
Mansaray was born in Philadelphia and raised in Columbia, SC. She Mansaray was born in Philadelphia and raised in Columbia, SC. She grew up in a low-income, immigrant household as one of six children. Her parents, originally from Sierra Leone, worked tirelessly to support the family. Growing up in the Deep South, Mansaray faced racism and systemic inequities early on, experiences that shaped her understanding of injustice and her desire to confront it. Inspired by her father's poetry and her own early love of writing, she found journalism as a way to merge storytelling with activism.
Mili Mansaray
Chips Quinn Reporter
Mansaray earned her degree in Digital Journalism and Africana Studies from NYU in 2020. Her training at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute provided a solid foundation in reporting, while her coursework in Africana Studies deepened her understanding of systemic oppression and Black resistance. She also studied abroad in Buenos Aires, where she reported on anti-Black racism, immigrant discrimination and cultural identity. That global perspective continues to inform her work today.
She later completed a business reporting internship through the Dow Jones News Fund and became a certified Solutions Journalism trainer. She views solutions journalism as essential to countering disempowering narratives by focusing not only on problems, but on responses—helping readers see paths toward progress.
Mansaray is especially passionate about reporting on issues that affect marginalized communities, particularly Black women. Her commitment to justice is evident in her leadership of The Missing Black Women Project, a groundbreaking investigation launched when a young woman escaped captivity after being abducted from Kansas City’s Prospect Avenue, a case local mainstream media and police initially dismissed. Mansaray’s reporting was later cited by the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office in support of a race-blind charging policy.
In addition to this ongoing work, she has produced widely used resource guides for unhoused residents in Kansas City and investigated the federal government's rescinding of funding for a Black farmers market, illuminating long-standing attacks on Black food sovereignty.
Mansaray’s latest story | Ivanhoe Farmers Market Turns to Community as the U.S. Government Wages War on Black Farmers | Kansas City Defender
Why Apply for the Chips Quinn Reporter Fellowship?
Mansaray applied to the Chips Quinn Fellowship during a challenging period, both personally and professionally. Despite finally breaking into journalism two years after graduating, she was dealing with financial instability, unsupportive leadership and impostor syndrome. She needed mentorship, guidance and a community that would remind her why she entered the field in the first place.
The fellowship offered a space to reconnect with her purpose, refine her reporting and develop a sustainable approach to the work, one that prioritizes care, values lived experience and stays true to her voice.
Mansaray encourages young journalists to trust their instincts and protect their energy. “You’re not a machine,” she says. “Rest is part of the process.” She believes the most powerful journalism comes from challenging norms, questioning power and embracing your voice—not trying to fit outdated molds.
Mansaray holds a deep commitment to truth and fairness but is clear about her stance: she will never be neutral in the face of systemic injustice. Her work aims not only to inform but to challenge, empower and build toward a more equitable world.
Message from her Mentor
"It’s has been such a honor to work with Mili as she developed her skills over the past year — and then took aim at finding a new, challenging job in editing. Working with the Defender has allowed her to write as well as direct coverage, launch stories through others and begin to develop investigative projects. Mili is just what journalism needs today: She’s constantly upbeat, thirsty for learning, and she brings her singular life experiences to the coverage of the Kansas City community and the Defender's growing reach beyond its KC base. It’s been a great year — for both of us — with the help of the fellowship“
Anders Gyllenhaal
Former editor of The Miami Herald, Minneapolis Star Tribune and The N&O; Former McClatchy VP of news
Started by Freedom Forum, the original Chips Quinn program helped put college interns into newsrooms across the country. Since its beginnings in 1991, the program has reached more than 1,400 people, many of whom are now in leadership positions for local and national newsrooms. Today, the program aims to offer support to early-career journalists already in their respective newsrooms through a 1:1 mentorship by leading members in the journalism field as well as alumni from the program. Thanks to continued support for the program from Freedom Forum, each Chips Quinn Reporter receives a $10,000 stipend..
About Freedom Forum: Established on July 4, 1991, by USA TODAY founder Al Neuharth, the Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) foundation dedicated to fostering First Amendment freedoms for all. As the nation’s foremost advocate for First Amendment freedoms, the Freedom Forum engages thousands of Americans each year in classes, conversations and celebrations of these essential rights, including through the Power Shift Project, the annual Al Neuharth Free Spirit and Journalism Conference, the Chips Quinn Scholars Program for Diversity in Journalism, the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media, the Free Expression Awards, the annual “Where America Stands” survey, the Journalists Memorial and Today’s Front Pages.
About JFP: The mission of Journalism Funding Partners is to strengthen the depth, diversity and sustainability of local news by building and shepherding relationships between funders and local news organizations. JFP is a recognized nonprofit that acts as fiscal sponsor, allowing foundations and individual funders to contribute directly to local news, regardless of the news organization’s business model. JFP manages the funds feeding numerous news initiatives, including more than a dozen Climate reporters in the Southeast, an Equity Desk at The Sacramento Bee, an Education and Economic Mobility Desk in California’s Central Valley, the Investigative Fund of The Miami Herald and for Inclusivity and Investigative funds at the Associated Press.
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Media Contact: Rusty Coats, Executive Director | rusty@jfp-local.org | (813) 277-8959
