Evert Nelson
Evert Nelson blends visual storytelling with feature reporting on how people move, ride and gather around vehicles. He works as a chief photojournalist and creative lead at The Topeka Capital-Journal, and his coverage focuses on the culture, businesses and communities that form around motorcycles, cars and local roads.
Motorcycle and riding culture
Nelsen’s recent work highlights places and experiences that matter to riders, using both images and narrative detail. In his feature on Kickstart Saloon, he shows how a bar with a reputation as a rough biker stop functions as a tight-knit, supportive community for regulars, treating the motorcycles as a backdrop to a story about belonging and mutual help. His social video work extends this focus, documenting maintenance and customization of bikes such as supermotocross machines and an adventure-style KLR650, and walking through practical upgrades like integrating Apple CarPlay into a motorcycle cockpit. Across these pieces he consistently combines mechanical interest in the bike with attention to the people who ride it, giving his coverage a human, community-first angle rather than a purely technical one.
Automotive projects and mechanical work
Nelson regularly documents hands-on automotive work, using short-form video and photo sequences to show what it takes to keep older vehicles on the road. In one series he revives a 1983 GMC square-body truck, framing the process as a step-by-step resurrection of a classic vehicle rather than a simple repair clip. In another he focuses on major mechanical tasks like pulling an engine, treating the job as a narrative of effort and problem-solving rather than a quick highlight reel. This emphasis on the physical work of maintaining and modifying vehicles, and the satisfaction that comes with it, distinguishes his coverage from beat writers who concentrate on specifications or industry news.
Sports and event coverage with a visual focus
Alongside his vehicle-centered stories, Nelson covers regional sports and events in a way that leans heavily on photography. His X feed features extensive galleries from college basketball doubleheaders and other collegiate competition, pointing readers back to full picture galleries at The Topeka Capital-Journal rather than text-only game stories. He uses similar visual-led coverage for tournaments and championships in other sports, often highlighting behind-the-scenes or locker room moments after key wins. This pattern shows that he approaches sports and events as opportunities for immersive visual reporting, fitting with his role as a chief photojournalist.
Role at The Topeka Capital-Journal
Nelson holds a senior visual role at The Topeka Capital-Journal, serving as chief photojournalist and creative director for the newsroom. His output mixes staff photography, feature storytelling and cross-platform content, with still images running in the paper and companion clips appearing across social channels. Many of his posts explicitly direct audiences back to CJOnline galleries and coverage, underlining his function as a bridge between visual reporting on the website and wider distribution on social platforms. His body of work is marked by a consistent interest in vehicles, mechanical projects and the communities around them, all rendered through a visual-first approach that supports the paper’s broader reporting.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aarian Marshall
Aarian Marshall is a staff writer at WIRED who stands out for covering how cars, software, and policy collide. She writes on transportation systems and cities, from the auto industry to broader mobility systems. Before WIRED, she reported on cities and urban policy for The Atlantic’s CityLab. Her beat runs from electric vehicles, fuel prices, tariffs, and car-buying decisions to autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, and software-defined cars. She reports with a systems view, linking policy shifts, technical failures, and urban life to what happens on streets, in repair shops, and at the pump.
Adrian Leung
Adrian Leung writes engineering-led coverage of Chinese electric vehicles and performance cars for CarNewsChina. He focuses on new energy vehicles, battery systems, powertrains, electric platforms, high-end domestic brands, and track-ready models, and he explains technical details in plain language for non-specialist readers. His reporting treats new models as hardware and systems stories, with precise figures on range, battery capacity, chassis layout, motor outputs, weight, and acceleration. He also covers the Chinese auto industry’s finances and technology roadmap, including sector profits, vehicle volumes, and solid-state battery timelines. His background in Electrical and Computer Engineering shows in the way he writes about vehicle electronics and battery management.
Al Pefley
Al Pefley is a television news reporter for CBS12 News whose work centers on how laws, law enforcement and local decisions shape everyday life for drivers and other residents. He reports in a general assignment role but returns often to transportation, public safety and pocketbook issues, treating driving as a point where policy, disability and policing intersect. His coverage includes driver-focused laws, fuel and tax policy, crime, policing and internal affairs findings, with a consistent focus on accountability and concrete consequences for people’s wallets, safety and trust in institutions. He explains county gas tax debates, campaign positions on teacher pay, property crime and retail theft in short, clear segments. Pefley works primarily on the scene, using live or recorded field reporting and interview-driven pieces to show what happened, why it matters and what comes next.
Aliza Savira
Aliza Savira focuses on the hidden financial costs of owning modern cars, especially how insurance can undermine expected savings. She writes about automobiles for MSN, looking at new technology and electric vehicles through everyday ownership rather than showroom appeal. Her work highlights the gap between promises of cheaper running costs and the full financial picture of owning a vehicle. In electric vehicle coverage, she treats insurance premiums as a key ownership problem that can erode long-term value. She stays close to practical questions drivers face, such as which recurring costs matter most after purchase. She reports on how insurance structures and premium levels interact with new automotive technology. Her beat is consumer-focused automobile reporting, with a clear, utilitarian lens on ownership experience, recurring expenses, and risk, rather than lifestyle or performance.