OUR STAFF
Behind every fellowship and student success story is a team devoted to mentorship and public service. The staff of the Watchdog Writers Group works with established journalists and young journalists to tell stories that matter.
Chris Leonard founded the Watchdog Writers Group in 2019. He is a journalist and author who writes about economic and political power in America. He has written three books, including two New York Times bestsellers “The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy,” and “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America,” along with “The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business.” Leonard was a senior fellow at The New America Foundation from 2012 through 2017, and was awarded the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress award in 2017. Leonard writes for publications such as The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, Time Magazine and Politico Magazine. He has discussed his investigations on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, NPR Morning Edition, Morning Joe and Real Time with Bill Maher. He is currently working on his next book about the U.S. defense industry.
Mya Frazier oversees student mentorship and training efforts at WWG, enriching student access to the best techniques and practices of investigative reporting. Mya is an award-winning investigative and narrative journalist based in the Midwest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Green, Guardian Long Read, NewYorker.com, Harper’s, Outside, and Columbia Journalism Review, among many other publications. She is a former staff writer for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and American City Business Journals.
Frazier was a finalist for the 2025 National Magazine Award in feature writing from the American Society of Magazine Editors, won the 2022 NPF Poverty Award, a 2025 Climate Change Now award, and has twice received the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. She has been awarded journalism fellowships from the Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan, the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at City University of New York, the 11th Hour Food, Farming and Environmental Journalism Projects at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, the Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights at the Columbia Journalism School, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard.
Kristen Davis handles administration for the Watchdog Writers Group — performing the necessary day-to-day tasks to ensure successful partnerships between the WWG and its various stakeholders such as students, fellows, and consultants. Her responsibilities include student hiring and payroll, contract administration, payment processing, and event planning.
A Louisville, Kentucky, native, Davis earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. Her concentration was broadcast television producing. After graduation, Davis spent several years with Hearst Television. She produced newscasts for WLWT in Cincinnati, Ohio, and KMBC in Kansas City, Missouri.
Her writing and presentation skills, coupled with an excellent news judgement, earned her an Emmy nomination from the Mid-America Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest.
Lessons from the Field: Thursday, April 2, 2026
