She is a San Diego native and returned to cover her hometown after working as a video journalist for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Las Vegas Sun and its television partner, KSNV. Katie previously worked as a print and video journalist for a daily newspaper in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she covered the crisis in Zimbabwe. She also interned for the Associated Press, producing internationally circulated videos and writing articles from the White House press room. Katie has received three Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards and is a finalist for the 2010 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. She is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.