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Laura Lee (she/her/hers)

Editorial Director
NC Local

Laura Lee is the inaugural editorial director at NC Local. She previously served as news director at Blue Ridge Public Radio, the NPR affiliate for Western North Carolina. In late 2024, she managed the organization’s award-winning coverage of Hurricane Helene, the most devastating storm in the state’s history.

Laura began her journalism career as a producer and booker at NPR on All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation. She returned to her native North Carolina to manage The State of Things, a live daily statewide show on WUNC.

After working as a managing editor of EdNC, an education journalism start-up, she became a writer and editor at a national education publication, Edutopia. She then served as the news editor at Carolina Public Press, a statewide investigative newsroom.

In 2018, Laura participated in the ONA Women's Leadership Accelerator. During her tenure at BPR, Laura received the 2025 Public Media Journalists Association’s Editor of the Year award. Laura received her master’s in journalism from the University of Maryland and her bachelor’s degree in political science and J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is licensed by the NC bar.

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