Real Change
Real Change covers food as part of a wider focus on how power and policy shape everyday survival, treating meals, markets and food programs as sites of struggle over access and dignity. Their work stands out for tying food coverage to organising and resistance, showing how community campaigns push back against institutions that control land, labor and public space.
Food, institutions and domination
Real Change writes about food in the context of large institutions that set the terms of community life.
In their coverage of opposition to FIFA domination and CID’s long legacy of resistance, they take a global sports body as an example of how distant powers can dictate what happens on the ground. Food sits inside that frame as one of the basic needs affected when decisions about events, development and policing are made far from the people who live with the consequences.
This makes their beat less about recipes or consumer trends and more about the structural pressures that shape who eats, where and on what terms.
Resistance and long campaigns
A recurring thread in Real Change’s work is the history of resistance. Rather than treating conflict over space or resources as isolated flare-ups, they show how community groups build long campaigns to defend their ability to live, work and eat in place. The focus on CID’s long legacy of resistance reflects a habit of looking backward as well as forward, putting current fights over food access, markets or public space in a line of earlier struggles.
That historical lens helps explain why certain issues, including food security, remain hard to shift without organised action.
Community voices and organising
Real Change’s food coverage centres the people most affected by policy and institutional decisions.
They draw out voices from community organisations, campaigners and residents rather than relying on official statements alone. Stories about resistance to bodies like FIFA sit alongside accounts of how grassroots efforts try to protect local economies, including food vendors and informal markets.
The result is reporting that treats food as part of community organising, showing how campaigns over land use, event planning or public investment are also campaigns over who has reliable access to nourishing food.
Beat focus and format
Within the masthead, Real Change uses the food beat to connect basic needs to larger systems, and to show how people organise when those needs are threatened. Their pieces tend to be reported features that combine narrative, context and clear accounts of what is at stake for those on the margins of power.
Rather than service journalism for individual consumers, the coverage looks at food as collective experience, with attention to how policies, institutions and resistance movements determine whether communities can feed themselves on their own terms.
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.