Katherine Corcoran

Katherine Corcoran (2019) is an independent journalist who has been Associated Press bureau chief for Mexico and Central America, a 2016 Alicia Patterson fellow and the 2017-2018 Hewlett Fellow for Public Policy at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Under her leadership at the AP the news organization broke major stories, including the Mexican army massacre of at least 12 suspected criminals after they had surrendered. The AP Mexico bureau was the first media outlet to interview illegal poppy growers feeding the heroin explosion in Mexico and the U.S. and has won awards for stories detailing how criminal violence affects ordinary people in the region. Her team’s work has been recognized by the Overseas Press Club, the Michael Kelly Award and Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize, among others.

At Kellogg Katherine studied violence against the press in Mexico, now one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Katherine has taught graduate-level journalism courses at Stanford University and at the University of California at Berkeley. Corcoran has also been a reporter or editor at the San Jose Mercury News, the Denver Post and the San Francisco Chronicle.

As a Logan Nonfiction fellow, Katherine will write “In the Mouth of the Wolf,” a narrative nonfiction book about the epidemic of journalist killings in Mexico’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz during the six-year term of one governor. The story shows how silencing the free press affects basic protections and rule of law for all citizens.