BEHIND THE STORIES Dung Hoang
Mediocre guy who loves snapping photos of strangers for as long as he was drawing stick figures … which is a very long time. But it was only 10 years ago that he decided to pick up a big, clunky DSLR, and has since produced a bunch of photos ranging from portraits and landscapes to food and street photography. He consumes more coffee than he cares to admit, and loves walking barefoot wherever he’s allowed.
Cathy McKitrick
Cathy McKitrick discovered her love of storytelling in midlife, graduating from Weber State University in 1998 with a journalism degree in hand. She covered local government for the Standard-Examiner until 2005, when she was hired by the Salt Lake Tribune. During that eight-year adventure, she covered local and state government, poverty, homelessness, the opioid overdose crisis, and more. Following a mass layoff, she returned to the Standard-Examiner in 2013, again covering local government, opioid overdoses, cannabis and other health care issues. Cathy retired from the Standard-Examiner in April 2018, but her passion for journalism remains intact. She now freelances and serves on the board of the Utah Investigative Journalism Project. In her spare time, this grandma enjoys a leisurely run, a good laugh, and catching up with family and friends. She can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cathy.mckitrick.7, and Twitter at @catmck.
Palak Jayswal
Palak Jayswal is a Salt-Lake based, awardwinning journalist. She has written for several Utah publications such as The Salt Lake Tribune, SLUG Magazine, and The Daily Utah Chronicle. Palak has been involved in projects with the Poynter Institute and NPR’s Next Generation Radio. She currently works at KUER where she handles all things digital. She aspires to one day be a music critic, and her favorite part of being a journalist is being able to listen and share other people’s stories.
6 | utahstories.com
