Josie Lenora
Politics/Government ReporterJosie Lenora is the Politics/Government Reporter for Little Rock Public Radio. She covers anything involving city government, the legislature, or the governor's office. Josie leads bi-annual "Arkansas Decides" election coverage, and is an occasional fill-in host for Morning Edition or All Things Considered.
Josie is the host of Track One, an episodic investigative podcast for the station.
Josie has thirteen first-place awards from the Arkansas Society of Professional Journalists. Her report on the Arkansas Department of Education's AP African American Studies ban won first place at the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest for 2024. She was the recipient of The National Press Foundations Elections Journalism Fellowship. In 2025, she won a first place award from the Arkansas Press Women for her piece on a planned prison in Charleston, Arkansas. The same year, she won the UA Little Rock Ben Fry Award for Staff Achievement, and was the recipient of The Arkansas Press Women’s First Investigative Journalism Mini-Grant. She served on the board for the Arkansas Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists 2024-2025.
Her reporting has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered and Morning Edition. This includes the Lawsuit over "Critical Race Theory" in Schools, Arkansas drag bans and the State Monument to the Unborn.
She hosts the Arkansas Civic Minute thanks to the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute Program. She freelanced audio for Gimlet's podcast "Crime Show," "Embedded: Taking Cover" from NPR and Dateline NBC's "Murder in Apartment 12." Josie was a regular guest on the Arkansas-PBS weekly news show "Arkansas Week," and moderated a televised congressional debate at the former tv station.
She loves white noise machines, ambient music and anything by Taylor Swift. In 2023, she had fun overhauling the top-of-the-hour, stand-by and interstitial music for the station.
Outside work, Josie makes things in miniature. She is working on a massive project to renovate the insides of old dollhouses in different eras of history. She enjoys spin class, caffeinated lattes, documentary podcasts, every shade of pink and her Maltese-Dachshund Carter. Josie carries art supplies where ever she goes.
She loves her job.
Email: josie@littlerockpublicradio.org
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Democrats and incumbent Republicans fared well in Tuesday's elections across Arkansas, with some surprise shakeups in state legislative and local races. -
Unlike several other incumbents, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is running unopposed in the Republican primary. -
The newly-reconstituted board now gets oversight from the Arkansas Department of Education. -
U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker ordered certain protocols be followed in parole revocation hearings. -
Over 30 inmates are suing the state, saying the parole process is unconstitutional. -
The two-year-old case was over an ordinance banning canvassing in a small White County town.
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This is episode two of Shelved, a two-part series exploring book banning in two Arkansas libraries. -
This is episode one of Shelved, a two-part series exploring book banning in two Arkansas libraries.
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A decades-old court case preventing the Arkansas Legislature from altering citizen-led amendments is now overturned. -
Little Rock Public Radio presents a new investigative podcast looking at the story behind some of Arkansas' biggest headlines.
