Annalisa Burgos
Annalisa Burgos brings a consumer-focused, business-aware lens to food coverage at Hawaii News Now, using restaurant and product stories to explore how culinary trends intersect with local entrepreneurship and affordability. She treats food segments not just as dining tips but as entry points into how small businesses grow, adapt and connect with their communities.
Food, business and local makers
Burgos’ food coverage centers on the people and business decisions behind what ends up on Hawaii tables. In her “What’s Cooking” segment on Aloha Nata’s Portuguese custard tarts, she highlights how a brand introduces an iconic product to the local market and frames it as part of Hawaii’s evolving culinary landscape. Across recent work, she features local vendors at events such as the Ala Hawaii Food Show, showing how specialty food makers position themselves to reach new customers and institutional buyers.
She pays attention to pricing, distribution and exposure, emphasizing how food businesses navigate costs and competition while staying rooted in local identity.
Affordability and the cost of living
Alongside food stories, Burgos hosts “Covering the Cost with Annalisa Burgos,” a Hawaii News Now livestream that breaks down the numbers behind the state’s affordability challenge.
She uses that format to examine how housing, food and everyday expenses affect residents, connecting individual experiences with broader economic trends. Her reporting looks at inflation, wages and household budgets, and she brings those themes back into her food coverage by asking what it takes for both consumers and small food businesses to survive in a high-cost environment. This dual focus distinguishes her work: food is treated as part of the larger cost-of-living picture, not separate from it.
Anchor-driven community coverage
Burgos is a weekend anchor and Sunrise Weekends anchor at Hawaii News Now, and her food reporting grows out of that role. She regularly fronts segments that spotlight cultural events, one-night-only culinary performances and nonprofit fundraisers where food plays a central role. In coverage of a one-woman show by a chef and of launch events that raise money for causes such as sex trafficking rescue and museum projects, she connects food, performance and philanthropy, underscoring how culinary work is woven into community life.
Her on-air presence allows her to package these stories for morning and weekend audiences, balancing service information with narrative about the people involved.
Cultural context and Filipino food
Burgos brings particular depth when covering Filipino food and culture. She has moderated Filipino food conversations and appears as a host and emcee at events that promote culinary exchange between Hawaii and the Philippines.
In these settings, she frames food as a bridge for economic development and cultural understanding, highlighting chefs, cookbook authors and restaurateurs who are pushing Filipino cuisine into the mainstream. Her food stories often draw on this context, positioning dishes and ingredients within broader migration, identity and heritage narratives.
That cultural grounding gives her coverage a more layered perspective than a simple taste or trend segment.
Format: on-air segments and live conversations
Most of Burgos’ food work is produced as televised segments and livestream conversations rather than long-form text. She uses short, structured pieces to introduce new food concepts, showcase behind-the-scenes preparation and interview the people running the business.
Her “Covering the Cost” livestream extends that style into longer, candid discussions where she presses guests on numbers and trade-offs. Together, these formats keep her coverage accessible and visual while still tackling topics like margins, pricing and community impact.
For communications teams, she is a journalist who treats food as both a lifestyle subject and an economic story, with a consistent emphasis on how local businesses and consumers manage the real-world costs behind what they eat.
4 more food journalists.
Aaron Guerrero
Aaron Guerrero is head of the digital department at Miami’s Community Newspapers, where he pairs restaurant coverage with community-facing content. He focuses on how Miami-area restaurants evolve, celebrate, and experiment through new concepts, menus, and neighborhood-focused dining experiences. He reports on restaurant openings, such as an Italian food hall at Plaza Coral Gables, new executive lunch menus, and wood-fired Latin steakhouse brunches, explaining what sets each venue apart. He also covers awards, like a Wine Spectator honor for an Italian chophouse, and events that turn dining rooms into social hubs. His bylines extend to features on sports-themed gatherings, civic renamings, local visits to restaurant programs, sponsored community pieces, and official notices. His work is straightforward and descriptive, helping readers and local businesses connect around specific openings, promotions, and dining experiences.
Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming reports on how courts, jails and public safety systems work over time. He is a reporter at The Daily Memphian covering public safety, the local court system, suburban news and business developments in North Mississippi. His work follows trials, sentencing, appeals, plea deals and judicial decisions, including major cases tied to Tyre Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also covers jail conditions, inmate deaths, crime data, prosecution units, trafficking, shootings and public-order incidents. His suburban reporting examines cannabis businesses, restaurant openings and how commercial growth affects communities such as Olive Branch. Fleming previously covered education in the same newsroom. He uses clear, unadorned prose to explain legal steps, deadlines, institutional problems and the political, commercial and community effects of public-safety decisions.
Alana Al-Hatlani
Alana Al-Hatlani is a food writer and editor who treats recipes, restaurants, and food features as ways to explore culture, community, and the business of eating. She works on the food team at Southern Living, overseeing and contributing to print recipes and reported features. Her pastry-focused, restaurant-tested perspective comes from time in restaurant and bakery kitchens. She helps plan and write monthly food packages, including “The South’s Most Treasured Desserts,” and wrote “8 Summer Recipes Our Editors Make Every Year.” She also writes recipe tips, ingredient explainers, restaurant guides, and reported stories about workers, owners, and communities. Her subjects include regional specialties, dining scenes, kitchen basics, and food industries. Her work has appeared with OpenTable and Yahoo. She reports on the ground, explains techniques clearly, and connects specific dishes and places to larger stories about food and livelihood.
Alana Edgin
Alana Edgin is a business reporter whose strongest focus is food, restaurants and consumer-facing businesses. She works at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and has also had work syndicated across AOL and Yahoo News. She covers new openings, closings, expansions and franchise growth, along with retail, health, services, corporate news, data incidents, business support programs and sponsorships. Her reporting includes detailed roundups of new restaurants and businesses, coverage of El Pollo Loco’s opening, and stories on burger trucks, dessert shops, Vietnamese sandwich restaurants and gourmet markets. She also contributes to food and drink reviews, including fall coffee and jerky comparisons. Edgin reports with practical “what, when, where” details, structured comparisons and clear explanations of how offers, partnerships and business changes affect consumers and the local economy.