Outlier Media is a Detroit-based service journalism organization. We identify, report, and deliver valuable information to empower residents to hold landlords, municipal government and elected officials accountable for longstanding problems in the housing and utilities markets. By keeping residents first, we hope to give more than we take, and leave people with the information they need to create change in their own communities.
Candice Fortman, Chief of Engagement and Operations
Candice Fortman has turned her love for all things media into a career focused on diversifying newsrooms and journalistic organizations to reach beyond traditional news audiences.
Before joining Outlier Media Candice was the Marketing & Engagement Manager for WDET 101.9-Detroit’s NPR station. Candice led the effort to build WDET’s audience and grow the station’s digital communities and content by engaging listeners around news, music, and culture.
Prior to joining WDET Candice served as Promotions Manager at Clear Channel Radio (now iHeart Media) where she led promotional and engagement strategy for three radio stations inside the Detroit cluster for more than five years. In 2018 she was selected for Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media.
Currently, Candice serves as the board president of the Grandmont Community Association. She is a board member of The Village of Bethany Manor-a senior living community and a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Classical Roots Steering Committee.
Candice is the co-founder of Ladies Who Pizza, a social club for women who love pizza. In 2015 she founded Galentine’s Day Detroit a brunch and fundraiser that celebrates the power of female friendships while supporting organizations that enhance the lives of women and girls.
In her free time, she can be found tweeting about Detroit and pop culture (@cande313) and occasionally dusting off her yoga mat. If you’re interested in Outlier helping decrease information gaps and increase accountability in your community reach out to candice@outliermedia.org.
Sarah Alvarez, Founder and Executive Editor
Sarah started her career in civil rights law in New York, but is much happier as a journalist than she ever was as a lawyer. Before founding Outlier Media, she worked as a senior producer and reporter at Michigan Radio, the statewide NPR affiliate.
In that role, she covered issues important to low-income families, child welfare and disability. Her work has been featured on NPR, Marketplace, The Center for Investigative Reporting, Bridge Magazine, and The Detroit News. Sarah believes journalism is a service and should be responsive to the needs of all people.
She developed Outlier’s model after years of trying to figure out how journalists could do a better job filling information gaps and increasing accountability to low-income news consumers. She launched Outlier in 2016, during her year as John S. Knight (JSK) Fellow at Stanford University. She lives in northwest Detroit. To get in touch with Sarah, please contact her at sarah@outliermedia.org or 313-643-5508.
Katlyn Alo Alapati, Data Reporting and News Apps Director
Katlyn recently completed a fellowship at ProPublica Illinois, working on the News Applications Desk. Before that, she received a master’s from the Stanford Journalism Program, focusing on computational and multimedia journalism
Raised in Denver and having studied for five years in northern California, this is Katlyn’s first time living in Detroit. She is ecstatic to be part of Outlier’s mission, delivering crucial stories to the communities that need them. Tips and questions at katlyn@outliermedia.org.
Imani Mixon, Investigative Reporting Fellow
Imani Mixon is a Detroit-based and embraced journalist who reports on neighborhood change and creative independence. She explores narratives of acquiring and returning, necessity and desire, and the overwhelming coolness of all things Black.
Her stories have been published by Complex, Condé Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, MetroTimes, Michigan Radio, Model D Media, and The Guardian.
During her six-month fellowship she will be adding investigative reporting tools to her journalism practice while helping Outlier develop more creative approaches to creating and distributing accountability reporting to impacted residents and communities. This fellowship is funded and managed in partnership with WDET, Detroit’s Public Radio Station.
Our Community-public service minded journalists
Most importantly, we work to serve and learn alongside our news consumers in Detroit.
Our work would not be possible without the help, support, and brainpower of public service minded journalists like those at City Bureau, Hearken, Free Press, Project Facet, Flint Beat, Tyler Loop, VT Digger, Spaceship Media and so many more!
Outlier Media is a fiscally sponsored project of Investigative Reporters and Editors. We are grateful for the generous grant support from the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan, News Integrity Initiative, Democracy Fund and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. This project was initially supported by a pilot grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Outlier owes a particular debt of gratitude to the JSK Fellowship at Stanford University, Kimberly Springer, James Hamilton, Dawn Garcia, Jim Bettinger, Aaron Glantz, Andrew Haeg, Jennifer Brandel, and the crew at Michigan Radio; in particular Tamar Charney, Sarah Hulett, Vince Duffy, Jennifer Guerra, Dustin Dwyer, and Brittany Bartkoviak.