Kim Gamel is Civil Beat’s managing editor. She joined the organization as a deputy editor in November 2020. She’s also an accredited solutions journalism trainer.

Kim came to Hawaii after many years abroad, most recently in Seoul covering the Korean Peninsula for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

That gave her a firsthand view of the U.S.-North Korea relationship as it evolved from “fire and fury” threats of war to Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s bromance.

A Russian major in college, Kim began her career as a reporter with an English-language newspaper in Moscow, the Moscow Tribune, as the Soviet Union was starting to disintegrate.

She later went to work for The Associated Press in Iowa, North Carolina and New York before being posted as the Nordic/Baltic news editor in Sweden. A highlight of that period was going reindeer herding with indigenous Sami north of the Arctic Circle.

She was in Stockholm when 9/11 happened. That triggered an intense interest in the Middle East, leading to a posting as AP’s news editor in Baghdad from 2006-2009.

Her portfolio also includes assignments in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt.

Kim took a break from conflict zones to do a 2014-15 Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, where she developed an interest in the importance of local news and the need to find innovative ways to produce it.

Kim, a native of Boise, Idaho, has a bachelor’s degree from Bates College in Maine and a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

She’s excited about joining Civil Beat and engaging with the community on important economic, social and environmental issues that impact the islands. Let her know if you have any ideas.