Susanna Capelouto is the Southern Bureau Chief for National Public Radio. She works with reporters in 13 Southern states to produce content for NPR’s digital and radio audiences.  Before joining NPR Susanna served as Deputy Managing Editor at Atlanta’s Public Radio station WABE. 

Throughout her long career as a journalist, she worked as a writer for CNN Digital and as a news editor at CNN’s International desk.

Susanna got her start in journalism at Georgia Public Broadcasting, the state’s 17-station public radio network where she worked as a producer, reporter and eventually as news director. There she reported on state politics, healthcare, and education policies.

Susanna is a graduate of Georgia State University.  In her free time, she works with bees as a Georgia Certified Beekeeper, a passion she says can also be applied to news leadership. In 2024 she co-wrote an article about “7 things newsroom managers can learn from beekeeping. ” 

At-Large Member Mitch Leff

Mitch Leff is president of Leff & Associates. He’s a 35-year Atlanta public relations veteran, recognized as one of the strongest and most effective media relations specialists in Atlanta. His expertise spans non-profits, business to business, consumer products, sports marketing, special event marketing, education, healthcare, technology and telecom.

He began his career with Cohn & Wolfe Public Relations, rising to become media relations director for the Atlanta office, at the time the largest public relations agency in the Southeast.  

He’s provided public relations services for some of the world’s most prestigious companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, AOL Time Warner, the National Football League (when Atlanta hosted its first Super Bowl), UPS and many others.  

He left agency PR to become director of public relations for Turner Learning, the educational division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.  There he was responsible for public relations and public affairs for educational programs across many AOL Time Warner networks and entities, including CNN, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network and the Atlanta Thrashers.  He also launched CNNstudentnews.com, the network’s first and only educational Web site. 

Leff spent several years with the Atlanta offices of Edelman Public Relations and GCI Group before launching Leff & Associates in 2003.

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At-Large Member Sabriya Rice

Sabriya Rice is KFF Health News’ Southern bureau chief. Her team focuses on bolstering health coverage about equity, race and poverty in the South and Texas.

Previously, she wrote about the business of health care for The Dallas Morning News, covered quality and safety issues in U.S. hospitals and health systems for Modern Healthcare, and produced television and digital medical news stories for CNN.

Most recently, she was the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism at the University of Georgia. Sabriya is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists, where she serves as co-chair of the Right to Know Committee.

At-Large Member Mark Woolsey

Mark Woolsey was always fascinated by radio. After starting out as a DJ, he got hooked on journalism. That led him into a gypsy career, working as a radio anchor/reporter in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington DC.

After growing more interested in weather, he took courses and was certified as a meteorologist through the Mississippi State University Broadcast Meteorology Program. That brought him to Atlanta and The Weather Channel.

Along the way, he also developed his skills as a print freelancer, writing for many newspapers and magazines. And he worked a couple of TV jobs. He’s semi-retired now but still doing part-time radio. He’s been very blessed to find something he likes to do and to get paid for it.

Journalism is important, he says, because it helps people make better decisions about their lives.

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