Francie Ebert
Francie Ebert covers parenting, family loss and everyday safety for NBC News, writing concise digital stories that connect headline events with the realities of raising children and caring for loved ones.
Parenting, grief and the impact of online influence
Ebert’s parenting coverage sits at the intersection of family life, social media and tragedy.
In a recent piece on a parenting influencer whose 2-year-old daughter drowned in a backyard swimming pool, she focuses on the father’s public account of loss and the way online audiences become part of the grieving process. Her writing keeps the details clear and spare while foregrounding the emotional stakes for parents who share their lives on social platforms.
She returns to themes of grief and caregiving in other work, including stories on high-profile figures navigating the death of a parent.
In these pieces she draws out how family roles change around illness and loss, paying attention to the language people use when they talk about becoming caregivers or preparing for the end of life. The parenting beat for her is less about tips and more about how families absorb and make sense of profound change.
Recalls and consumer safety affecting families
Ebert regularly handles brief digital reports on recalls that touch everyday family routines. In coverage of Minestrone soup served at a national grocery chain being recalled, she keeps the focus on what happened, where the product was sold and what action consumers need to take.
Her recall stories are direct and utilitarian, designed to give parents and households enough information to adjust shopping and food choices without delay.
This approach carries through to other safety-related items, where she highlights incidents that might prompt families to rethink common habits. Whether the subject is a product pulled from shelves or an accident that raises questions about household risk, her reporting emphasizes clear timelines, responsible parties and immediate implications for ordinary readers.
Celebrity news through the lens of addiction and caregiving
Alongside parenting pieces, Ebert writes about celebrity stories where addiction, responsibility and family care are central. In her coverage of Matthew Perry’s mother condemning an assistant who enabled his fatal addiction, she distills a complex situation into a sharp account of blame, oversight and the aftermath of a public figure’s death. The framing brings out how families respond when support systems fail someone struggling with substance use.
She takes a similar tack in pieces on actors and entertainers discussing end-of-life roles, such as an interview where Nicole Kidman speaks about wanting to be a “death doula” after her mother’s passing. Here Ebert focuses on how prominent figures describe the work of accompanying someone at the end of life, treating it as an extension of caregiving rather than a purely celebrity anecdote.
Across these stories, she uses familiar names to explore how families confront addiction, mortality and the responsibilities that come with both.
Short digital pieces on sudden loss and viral moments
Ebert’s role also includes quick-turn stories on sudden deaths and viral human-interest clips.
In an article on “The Wire” actor Bobby J. Brown’s death being ruled accidental after a barn fire, she presents the findings in straightforward language, foregrounding the official determination and the unusual circumstances rather than speculation.
The piece fits a pattern in her work of documenting unexpected loss while staying close to verified details.
She balances these heavier subjects with lighter digital items built around uplifting videos, such as an Artemis II astronaut reuniting with her dog in a heartwarming clip. These stories are brief and visual, giving enough context to explain why a moment resonated online while letting the scene itself carry the emotion.
Across this mix of accidents, reunions and everyday milestones, her writing keeps a consistent focus on how events - large or small - touch families, caregivers and the people around them.
Taken together, Ebert’s work at NBC News is defined by a blend of parenting coverage, consumer safety alerts, celebrity narratives about addiction and caregiving, and short digital dispatches on sudden loss and viral joy. Her beat is unified by close attention to how people cope with risk, grief and responsibility within families, whether the story begins at a backyard pool, a grocery aisle, a hospital room or a moment of relief shared with the wider world.
4 more parenting journalists.
Abigail Shrier
Abigail Shrier is a journalist, columnist at The Free Press, and bestselling author whose work centers on parenting, family relationships, and the cultural forces shaping childhood. She writes the weekly “Tough Love” advice column, where readers send hard personal and family dilemmas and she focuses on concrete situations and practical choices for parents, partners, and adult children. She also publishes essays and reported features on parenting that examine how institutions and professionals influence everyday family life, including criminalization of ordinary parental decisions and therapeutic advice that leads to “no contact” with parents. Her books “Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up” and “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” extend her reporting on therapy, gender medicine, and youth. She also covers education, gender, speech, activism, and censorship, approaching these subjects as reported arguments.
Alesandra Dubin
Alesandra Dubin uses parenting to examine how travel, independence, and everyday logistics shape family life. She is a digital travel and lifestyle journalist with more than 15 years’ experience covering parenting, travel, food, events, fashion and beauty, entertainment, home, and viral content for consumer and business outlets. Her work has appeared in Insider, Good Housekeeping, Parents, Esquire, Woman’s Day, Prevention, Glamour, Shondaland, AFAR, and TODAY. Her parenting beat centers on family travel, including flights, camps, hotels, destinations, and the ways parents protect their identity and relationships while caring for children. She also covers practical planning, from room layouts and prices to crowds, tickets, transit, pacing, and family-friendly dining. She reports through candid first-person stories, then draws out clear service advice and emotional insights about care, autonomy, stress, and family dynamics.
Alyson Krueger
Alyson Krueger is a freelance journalist who covers how people live, parent, gather and chase status in contemporary culture through reported narratives anchored in specific communities, events and social scenes. She writes for The New York Times and other publications and has contributed to The New York Times since 2013. Her parenting work centers on fatherhood and family rituals, using observed behavior and everyday routines to show changing family roles. She often reports on urban social life and leisure, including how people socialize and find rest in demanding environments, from city winters to shifting ski seasons. Her business and fashion stories examine the social meaning of wellness practices, marketing with superheroes, playful luxury food and gifting. She also covers major events, weddings and fan culture, paying attention to atmosphere, crowds and what draws people together.
Amie Windsor
Amie Windsor links parenting and everyday family life directly to local policy, community crises and governance decisions. She is the Opinion Editor at The Press Democrat and is described by the masthead as the Community Journalism Team Lead, drawing on nearly a decade in community journalism with sustained coverage of city hall and school boards. She writes opinion columns and reported pieces on parenting under democratic stress, wildfire displacement, transportation planning, law enforcement technology and major energy infrastructure decisions. Her parenting work treats raising children as part of civic life under political instability, showing how structural shifts enter routines, emotional labor and family conversations. Her reporting on biking and walking projects, hybrid police cruisers and dam decommissioning keeps policy and infrastructure grounded in specific projects, residents and public processes, emphasizing civic engagement, community resilience and resident-first coverage.