about rene
Rene Gutel is an award-winning multimedia journalist based in Phoenix, Arizona. She contributes stories regularly to National Public Radio and other radio programs across the country and in Europe. Additionally, Rene writes for the Phoenix New Times’ food blog and hosts a podcast for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.
Since Rene became a journalist in 2001, she has covered a bit of everything: from the destructive San Diego wildfires of 2007, to the build-up of National Guard troops along the US Mexico border, to the emerging popularity of pet-only funeral homes. In January of 2009, she traveled to Washington, DC to report on the Inauguration of President Barack Obama for Radio France Internationale and World Radio Switzerland. Rene has won journalism awards in Alaska, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and five regional “Edward R. Murrow†awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association. In February 2009, the Associated Press, Television and Radio Association awarded Rene two “Mark Twain” honors : a nomination in the best radio light feature category for a story about John McCain’s cabin in Cornville, and a best sports reporting award for a feature about a sixty-year-old college tennis player.
Rene is fluent in French and spent two months in Paris and Marseille in 2008 producing radio stories about French pop stars, American tennis prodigies, and price-fixing scandals. She’s also a producer for the alt.NPR podcast, B-Side Radio.
(Photo credit: Susan Edwards)