Shannon Becker
Shannon Becker is a breaking news reporter with KOAM News Now and Joplin News First who covers car‑centered incidents and events across the local road network. His coverage treats vehicles, traffic and public safety as a single beat, combining live on‑scene reporting with continuous updates on social platforms. He is known as a highly sourced reporter who regularly breaks crime and crash stories before competing outlets.
Route 66 Great Race and car events
Becker’s coverage of the Hemmings Great Race on Route 66 shows how he handles automotive events as both car culture and moving news story. In “The Great Race in Joplin for Route 66 Centennial,” he follows the classic‑car rally’s return to the city and its role in celebrating the Route 66 centennial as the race travels from Springfield, Illinois to Pasadena, California. The way he frames this event connects vintage vehicles, long‑distance rally logistics and the impact on the city streets the race passes through.
This kind of piece sits at the intersection of motorsport, tourism and traffic management, and fits into his broader habit of treating special automotive events as part of the live news cycle rather than as lifestyle coverage.
Road conditions and traffic safety
Road conditions are a recurring theme in Becker’s reporting, where vehicles and weather combine into a public‑safety story. In a KOAMroadconditions segment he recaps current conditions and looks ahead to how weather will affect drivers in the coming days, working alongside KOAM’s weather resources. These pieces focus on practical details: what drivers will face on key routes, how storms or ice are affecting visibility and traction, and where to expect enforcement or delays.
The emphasis is preventive and real‑time, positioning him as a go‑to source when the situation on the roads is changing quickly.
Breaking news, crime and live coverage on the roads
Becker’s strongest distinction on the automobile beat is his crime and breaking‑news work, much of which involves vehicles, crashes and roadside incidents.
Professional profiles describe him as a reporter who regularly breaks crime stories ahead of other media in his market, underlining how often those stories unfold on highways, local streets and parking lots. Joplin News First promotes itself as “LIVE!
Breaking News in the Joplin Metro Area,” and Becker is the face of that brand, using real‑time video and social posts to bring viewers directly to scenes involving law enforcement and emergency responders. His “Big 3 Stories of the week” segments for KOAM highlight notable incidents and developments, often drawn from this stream of live coverage and focused on the most consequential events for local residents.
Across these formats, his work tracks the movement of police units, tow trucks and traffic disruptions as part of the story, keeping the vehicle and the road visible even when the primary news hook is crime or public safety.
Retail traffic and community live shots
Not all of Becker’s automobile‑related work centers on danger; he also uses live hits to show how people move through commercial spaces and seasonal events. On Black Friday, KOAM features him “out talking to shoppers,” capturing foot and vehicle traffic around retail centers and the atmosphere of busy parking lots and access roads. These pieces are shorter but still rooted in the same real‑time approach, with Becker on location translating crowds, lines and congestion into simple visuals and quick interviews.
They expand his beat from formal traffic reports and crime scenes to everyday consumer behavior, showing how cars, streets and commerce interact on high‑volume days.
Taken together, Becker’s work at KOAM News Now and Joplin News First is defined by live, highly sourced reporting on how vehicles, roads and public safety intersect. He covers classic‑car rallies, hazardous driving conditions, crime scenes and retail surges with the same on‑scene, social‑forward style, making him a distinctive voice on the local automobile beat.
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.
Abby Smith
Abby Smith’s most distinctive work combines motorsports coverage with live digital and radio reporting. She is Digital Director at KRDO13 and covers the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, including race updates, weather shifts, breaking developments and ways to follow the action. Her beat also includes automotive news, crime, public safety, politics, city government and community life. Notable work includes coverage of homicide arrests, a major drug bust, a presidential address about the war with Iran, a family’s effort to bring Stephen Hubbard home, a state governor candidate and a city security ordinance. She also reports on fitness, school spirit and station staff. Smith writes in a concise, factual style shaped by investigative documentary experience. She turns live events, official announcements and daily developments into clear coverage across digital and radio platforms.
Adele Peters
Adele Peters covers climate solutions and other structural problems as design and policy questions, focusing on what can work in practice. She is a senior writer at Fast Company, where she reports on energy, transportation, housing, materials, agriculture, corporate sustainability, and social impact. Her stories examine climate technologies, grid resilience, electric vehicles, renewable energy, modular construction, homelessness, affordable housing, compostable materials, regenerative agriculture, and ecosystem restoration. She looks at whether projects can scale, their real-world constraints, and their measurable effects. She interviews political and philanthropic leaders, startup founders, and climate tech entrepreneurs, anchoring stories in what is being built and tested. She has written more than 3,000 stories and contributed to Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century and State of Housing Design 2023.
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.