About The Curious Scout

Diara J. Townes (she/her) is an environmental engagement journalist who reports on the places where power meets people, from data centers swallowing small towns to ethics violations buried in campaign filings to EMS deals that fall apart on a deadline.

Through The Curious Scout, she covers North Carolina with the same curiosity-driven, community-centered approach she brings to every story: showing up in person, staying past the press conference, and writing about what she finds without softening it.

She serves as program manager with NC Local, where she works on infrastructure for local newsrooms across the state, and as audience and engagement manager for The Margin, an Anthem Award–winning environmental justice publication reporting on the movement's roots in Warren County, North Carolina and beyond.

Her research background includes a stint at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she published a study on Burning Man as a framework for equitable, racially inclusive community design.

Originally from Long Island, NY, she graduated from Hampton University, an HBCU, with a bachelor's in marine and environmental science. She now lives in Central North Carolina, where she reports on the region's climate and information crises up close.

She leverages her background in physical science, informal education, journalism, and disinformation research to build solutions for communities underrepresented and underserved by both climate change and the collapse of local news.

Using community engagement methodologies, she develops strategies to meet those overlapping crises at the local, regional, and international level — treating journalism as more than documentation, but as infrastructure for the communities it serves.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek into my world. I hope you find something here that sparks your curiosity, that empowers you to stand for what you believe and helps you recognize that there’s more to us than meets the eye.

Diara J. Townes
Editor/Engagement Journalist