How WLRN and the Herald work together

Learn about the unique relationship between The Miami Herald and WLRN.

Dan Grech - Radio News Director

Dan Grech is the radio news director of the WLRN Miami Herald Report, a daily newscast produced jointly by South Florida’s largest newspaper and its public radio station. Dan is in charge of all aspects of the radio news operation and oversees a team of six radio reporters who are based in the Miami Herald newsroom.

Dan is a multi-platform journalist that has done work for national outlets in print, radio, and most recently television. He is the correspondent for a 12-part series on behavioral finance and neuroeconomics called “Your Mind and Your Money,” airing from October 2009 to September 2010 on Nightly Business Report on PBS.

He’s also the co-creator, co-host, co-senior producer of Under the Sun, a public radio show airing on 91.3 FM WLRN, South Florida’s NPR affiliate. The weekend news magazine tells the stories of South Florida and reflects the diversity of perspectives, passions and accents of the region. You can hear the show at wlrnunderthesun.org.

The past fall, Dan was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, teaching a course in audio production called “The New Audio Age of Journalism.” He has taught writing, interviewing and radio at Columbia University School of Journalism, Florida International University and the Florida Center for the Literary Arts. He has spoken at more than a dozen conferences and universities around the country.

For five years, Dan was a reporter for Marketplace, the public radio business news show. He was Marketplace’s first Americas Desk reporter, covering Latin American business and the Hispanic economy in the United States from WLRN Studios in downtown Miami. He traveled to half a dozen countries, filed on twenty presidential elections and led Marketplace’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

Dan got his start in print journalism. He freelanced for various publications while a student at Princeton University, after he realized he preferred reporting to washing dishes as a way to earn textbook money. He interned at The Boston Globe and The Washington Post before landing a gig at the Miami Herald in 2000. In his first month on the job, he helped report on the return of Elián González to Cuba, coverage that later was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Talk about timing. He also contributed to a staff-written book on the contested 2000 presidential election.

In 2003, Dan traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a Fulbright fellowship and an Inter American Press Association scholarship. There he earned a Masters degree in Spanish-language journalism.

Dan is based in Miami. When he isn’t running a radio newsroom, he performs in an improv comedy troupe (Chasing Tales) and is the founding vice chair of the Friends of New World Symphony.

Leah Fleming - Deputy News Director

Leah Fleming is the Deputy News Director for WLRN Miami Herald Radio News. Prior to her south Florida arrival she worked as Morning Edition host/reporter at WABE Public Radio in Atlanta, Georgia. There she was acknowledged for her work including winning an award from the National Association of Black Journalists.

Fleming fell in love with the art of radio during a summer internship in college. Since then she has reported, produced and anchored news programs at several stations, including WAMC Northeast Public Radio in Albany, New York, and WJCT Public Broadcasting in Jacksonville, Florida.

Fleming has also worked at NPR in Washington as a producer, and continues to work with NPR's Next Generation project as a mentor to aspiring journalists. A native New Yorker, Fleming holds a Master of Science degree in communication arts. In her spare time she enjoys doing community service with her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and traveling with her twin sister.

Phil Latzman - Anchor/Reporter

Phil Latzman is an award-winning journalist who has spent the last 2 decades covering both news and sports, the last 16 years in south Florida.

Prior to coming to the Miami Herald, Latzman was sports director for WIOD and WINZ, where he hosted a nightly sports-talk show and anchored coverage of both Dolphins and Miami Heat broadcasts. He was also the first voice heard on WQAM when it became South Florida’s first all-sports radio station in 1992. A New York native, Latzman previously worked at WABC Radio, where he served as Rush Limbaugh’s first producer. He also had stints at NBC Sports, assisting talent such as Bob Costas and Marv Albert on the networks’ NFL football and major league baseball coverage.

Phil is currently anchoring and reporting for the Herald’s groundbreaking radio operation. He’s also been familiar to a quarter-million listeners weekly as host of WLRN’s Morning Edition. In his more than 2-decades of broadcast experience, he has garnered several honors, including awards from the Associated Press, International Radio Festival and Achievements in Radio.

Phil is married and lives in Hollywood with wife Jill. They are proud parents of Mitchell, 8 and Marisa, 7.

Chris DiMattei - Anchor/Reporter

It was supposed to be a temporary thing.

Years ago, after racking her brains trying to find a fun, engaging, creative nighttime gig to subsidize her acting habit, she decided to ride her commercial voiceover experience into the fast-paced world of radio broadcasting. She started out with traffic reporting, moved on to news . . . and never looked back. Since then, Chris has worked in newsrooms throughout South Florida, producing spot news and features for radio broadcasts and the web.

In her other life, she has given birth to about 15 children, died four times, been married to 12 husbands (including a not-so-wild boar and a garden slug), twice taken vows as a nun and once been abducted by pirates in the Caribbean. And all this by doing English language dubbing for dozens of foreign films, soap operas and cartoons.

Both lives she says have been good.

Professional Motto: "Radio is the ultimate visual medium." -- Paul Harvey

Rick Stone - Reporter/Producer

Rick Stone, a reporter/producer for  WLRN/Miami Herald News, has had a long career in Florida radio and newspapers. He was born in Daytona Beach,  lived all over the state, and once received an award for writing the state’s third-best newspaper column.

Kenny Malone - Reporter/Producer

Since 2009, WLRN/Miami Herald news reporter and producer Kenny Malone has surveyed South Florida for some of its most revealing sound bites. From Hialeah to Delray Beach he's covered everything from a mysterious sign to a potentially devastating fruit fly invasion.

Malone helped to launch “Under the Sun,” WLRN’s award-winning show highlighting the strange tales of South Florida. He’s been a guest lecturer at Florida International University and Princeton University and teaches radio skills to print reporters at the Miami Herald.

He graduated from Xavier University in Ohio, where he was a math major. In his constant effort to prove there are dorkier things than being a math major, he has taken up glassblowing and loves to geocache (Don’t ask).

Miami Herald reporter Robert Samuels contributed to this bio.

Marina Giovannelli - Anchor/Reporter

Marina covers the environment and Hispanic affairs for WLRN Miami Herald News. Before that, Marina was a Metcalf Environmental Reporting Fellow at The World, a co-production of WGBH in Boston, PRI, and the BBC.

Marina has reported from Venezuela, Mexico City and Coney Island. The Associated Press named her "Rookie Reporter of the Year" for 2008 in North Carolina and awarded her reporting "Best Use of Sound”. Marina got her start in radio at NPR’s Science Desk, where she worked on the award-winning series Climate Connections.

A 2007 graduate of the University of California, San Diego, Marina received a B.S. in neuroscience, with minors in environmental chemistry and sociology of healthcare. She considers herself lucky to be one of the few people on UCSD's snowboarding team to never have suffered a concussion.