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 led up the 2024 "Arkansas Decides" election coverage, and is developing an anthology news podcast for the station. She is the occasional fill-in host for Morning Edition or All Things Considered.
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. She served on the board for the Arkansas Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists 2024-2025.
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.
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 freelanced audio for Gimlet's podcast "Crime Show," "Embedded: Taking Cover" from NPR and Dateline NBC's "Murder in Apartment 12."
Josie is an occasional guest on the Arkansas-PBS weekly news show "Arkansas Week," and moderated a televised congressional debate for the public TV station.
Josie has a B.A. in English/creative writing from Hendrix College in Conway.
Outside work, Josie is a crafting fanatic. Name a craft and she's probably tried it: renovating the insides of old dollhouses, making cards, polymer clay, needle felting, DIY home decorating and layered paper crafting.
Josie loves spin class, nonfiction audiobooks, Stephen King novels, caffeinated lattes, every shade of pink and her Maltese-Dachshund: Carter. She listens to as many podcasts as she can fit in a day.
Josie's excited to talk to you! Email: josie@littlerockpublicradio.org
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The artist has a little over a month to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the monument. Board members may go with someone else. -
Police say an active shooter reported on the University of Arkansas campus Monday was likely a hoax. -
The board is going through a reset in the wake of a new state law directing the governor to choose all new members. -
Ret. Col. Marcus Jones will complete the remainder of the term left by former chair Grant Tennille. -
The groups seemed to view a recent injunction blocking Arkansas' law requiring the Ten Commandments in state-run buildings as a minor setback. -
U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks says Act 573 likely violates the First Amendment. -
There's still a lot we don't know about the effects of the 2023 education overhaul law. -
A law to disband the board went into effect Sunday.
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A brief hearing was held Friday, where both sides quickly agreed to further testing. -
The group “Return to the Land” uses language to water down more troubling beliefs.
