Kathy Ritchie
Senior Field Correspondent | [email protected]Kathy Ritchie has 20 years of experience reporting and writing stories for national and local media outlets — nearly a decade of it has been spent in public media.
Ritchie joined KJZZ in 2014 — and it’s here where she has spent most of her public media career. In 2017, Ritchie began reporting on aging issues, almost exclusively, for KJZZ.
Over the years, she has reported on the myriad challenges facing LGBTQ elders, the topic of aging and intimacy, senior homelessness, ambiguous loss and grief, grandfamilies, long-term care and costs of aging, and what it means to age in our society.
Throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, Ritchie reported on the struggles facing families, older adults and caregivers in long-term care. That work led her to create a miniseries called, Caring in Crisis, in which she documented the experiences of "the helpers."
Ritchie was also responsible for the station’s largest newsroom collaboration, a 10-part series, The State of Aging in the Valley.
She has gone on to produce a four-part podcast about life after dementia. The Recovering Caregiver was based on her own personal experience with her mother who had frontotemporal dementia and what life was like after. The final episode was nominated for a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award.
In 2023, Ritchie produced a second podcast, this time on the topic of menopause. Period, The End (But Not Really) aims to set the record straight about this often misunderstood, yet normal, stage of life. Her work has also been featured on the Hear Arizona podcast.
Besides serving KJZZs audience, many of Ritchie’s stories have also aired NPR and NPR’s national magazine show, Here & Now.
In addition to her public radio work, Ritchie served as the health and caregiving editor at Next Avenue, a national digital publication geared towards 50-plus. While there, she oversaw a team of contributors, identified opportunities for new feature stories and series, and oversaw the completion of the 2021 John A. Hartford Foundation grant, one of Next Avenue’s largest active grants to date. Ritchie was also responsible for Next Avenue's 2022 series entitled Aging with Disabilities in America. Next Avenue is part of the Twin Cities PBS system.
Besides her professional experience in the aging space, Ritchie wrote about her mother’s journey living with dementia in a blog.
Ritchie got her start in television at ABC News and later FOX News in New York City.
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The lawyer for the family of the ASU hockey player who collapsed from heat stroke says the head coach reportedly got rid of his cellphone due to ongoing death threats. -
The Arizona Sheriff’s Association issued an open letter calling out the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office over its response to the public safety concerns surrounding the border wall construction in that area. -
A week ago, the University of Arizona temporarily suspended activities at its fraternities following reports of assault, hazing and drug- and alcohol-related behavior. Now, it appears most have been reinstated. -
Older Latinos often face barriers when it comes to healthcare — with language, culture and even transportation. Now, a new primary care clinic that was created to meet the needs of these aging Arizonans has opened its doors in Central Phoenix. -
The Mayor of Willcox in Southern Arizona is optimistic that Chiricahua National Monument will soon be the country’s 64th National Park. -
Vice President JD Vance says ASU — along with nine other universities across the country — are using the J-1 visa program to employ foreign workers as researchers, while paying them less than Americans in the same job. -
Health insurance is expensive and many Arizonans either go without or they’re underinsured. Now, a new clinic in Mesa that aims to fill that gap in care. -
This upcoming weekend is shaping up to be a wet one in parts of Arizona. -
The city says more than 9,000 accounts are significantly behind on payments — that comes out to nearly $24 million in past-due balances. Phoenix had suspended water shut-offs in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. -
A former Centennial High School student has filed a $7 million notice of claim against the Peoria Unified School District, alleging it failed to protect him from grooming and exploitation.
