About

Katie Foody (that’s me) is a reporter for The Associated Press based in Chicago. As a staff writer for the AP, I cover technology’s effect on daily life and breaking news. Previously, I worked for the AP from Denver where I covered law enforcement, legal issues and the legal marijuana industry.

I began my AP career in Atlanta, Ga. covering state government and politics. In Georgia, that includes native son and former President Jimmy Carter. I also jumped in on any breaking news in the Southeast region from severe weather to a global health crisis to gun violence.

Before coming to Atlanta in 2014, I was part of an investigative team serving 10 Wisconsin newspapers in the USA Today Network. I became something of a deep-dive specialist, for instance, leading this series on the disparate effects of casino gambling on native American tribes and producing continuous coverage of iron mining in the Midwest.

I also honed my iPhone video skills there, contributed several times a day to a politics blog and co-hosted a weekly politics podcast. Before joining the I-team, I covered local government and focused on holding agencies accountable on spending, public health and transparency.

I’m a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, hooked since realizing that Excel isn’t magic during my first IRE conference in 2012. I cringe when agencies send PDF’s or paper copies of spreadsheets but I know how to overcome those stumbling blocks. I can use data visualizations, databases and documents to develop ideas, answer questions and tell a story.

I’m a long-suffering White Sox fan and Chicago native. I’m a graduate of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois-Springfield and the news-editorial journalism program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Both programs trained me to be skeptical, not cynical.

If you’d like to know more, please email me or reach out on Twitter @katiefoody.