Elizabeth came back to her hometown of Washington, DC to join CNC as Senior Correspondent after spending years exploring many facets of the American West. She has donned body army to cover soldiers training for Iraq. She’s talked her way into the home of a polygamous family in Canada. Her microphone’s been in an operating room in remote rural Idaho and on fishing boats on the Columbia River. Elizabeth has spent the last several years reporting from Idaho and Eastern Washington for public radio’s Northwest News Network. While in the Inland Northwest, she frequently contributed to NPR and Marketplace. Previously she reported on community health and economic transformation issues from the coastal community of Astoria, Oregon. In San Francisco, she was associate producer and an occasional on-air reporter for "Springboard," a national PBS series on science and technology. Her radio stories have earned awards from Public Radio News Directors’ Inc., the Society of Professional Journalists, the Radio-Television News Directors’ Association, Idaho Press Club and the Oregon Associated Press. Elizabeth has an M.A. in Documentary Filmmaking from Stanford University and a B.A. in Political Science from Wellesley College. She also spent two years as a Research Associate at Harvard Business School, where she wrote case studies and contributed to two books on corporate strategy.

Melinda Wittstock is an award-winning broadcast and print journalist with 18 years' reporting and hosting experience in the highly competitive New York, Washington, and London media markets. Her work spans BBC Radio and TV News, ABC News, National Public Radio (NPR), MSNBC/CNBC, as well as London's Times, Guardian, and Observer newspapers. After covering U.S. national politics for more than a decade, Wittstock founded Capitol News Connection (CNC), which covers Congress from a local perspective for public radio stations nationwide. In two years, Wittstock built CNC from a staff of three serving 10 stations to a staff of 12 serving 230 stations. CNC’s daily audience is now 1.86 million (Arbitron: Spring 2006). Brought up in New York and Toronto, Wittstock graduated with an Honors B.A. in political science from McGill University (American Government, International Relations, and Political Philosophy). At McGill, she began her broadcasting career on CRFM Radio McGill as a news anchor and talk show host, and also edited The McGill Daily. She moved to London and joined the London Times as a correspondent when she was just 22. She spent five years on the newspaper, breaking several major investigative exclusive political and business stories, and started working for the BBC in 1990 as a newsmagazine reporter and live radio/TV pundit. In 1994 she joined NBC Europe as a financial news anchor, and the following year became one of the main primetime hosts/anchors of BBC World, the international TV news channel, where she covered most of the big breaking news stories of the time — from the Oklahoma City bombing to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the death of Princess Diana, as well as the 1996 and 2000 Presidential election campaigns and Monica Lewinsky affair. In 1998, Wittstock moved back to New York full time to join ABC News, anchoring the network's overnight and early morning national news programs, World News Now and World News This Morning. She continued to report for BBC Radio and TV, creating the nightly newsmagazine USA Direct from the BBC New York Bureau, and hosting the half-hour interview program, Hard Talk, and the discussion program, The Talk Show. She joined MSNBC and CNBC as a news reporter and anchor in 1999, before coming once more to Washington in 2000 to launch and host a new live NPR morning newsmagazine for Sirius Satellite Radio. She also freelanced as a congressional reporter for CNN and The London Observer while creating Capitol News Connection, which launched June, 2003. She lives in Washington D.C. with her husband Mark McDonald, their daughter Sydney, son Matthew Finn, and amiable but opinionated golden retriever, Pundit.

Eric Niiler is a seasoned journalist who most recently reported for WETA-FM's daily talk show "The Intersection." Since 2003, he has worked for National Public Radio's national and science desks, NPR's "Day to Day" program, and as a DC-based reporter for American Public Media's daily business program, Marketplace. Niiler has covered everything from moonshiners in southern Virginia to Mexican crab-pickers on Maryland's Eastern Shore - as well as developments on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon. Niiler learned radio at KPBS-FM San Diego, where he reported on immigration and border issues between the United States and Mexico. He has won print and radio journalism awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the California Chicano News Media Association, Southern California Broadcaster's Association, and San Diego Press Club. In April 2004, Niiler was an embedded reporter with U.S. Marines in Fallujah, Iraq, reporting on combat operations for KPBS and NPR. Prior to public radio, Niiler worked as a freelance journalist covering Mexico and the environment for publications including Scientific American, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Christian Science Monitor. Niiler also worked as a staff writer for newspapers in West Virginia, Massachusetts, and at the San Diego Union-Tribune. He lives in Chevy Chase with his wife Marisa and little boy Diego.

Sara Sciammacco is back in Washington, DC after spending five years in local commercial television and radio news. She most recently worked as a general assignment reporter at New England Cable News in Boston, Massachusetts. She also held reporter positions in Rhode Island, South Dakota and Wyoming. Prior to working in television, she worked as News Director and Morning Anchor for WSAR-AM in Fall River, Massachusetts. She is no stranger to the area or Capitol Hill; she graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a degree in government and politics. As a college student, she interned for Congressman James McGovern of Massachusetts and WRC-TV in Washington, DC. The Shrewsbury, Massachusetts native is excited about covering politics on Capitol Hill.

Yanmei Xie was born and raised in a small town in China. It’s been a long journey from her birthplace to the U.S. Capitol. Before she joined Capitol News Connection as a freelance producer and reporter, Yanmei worked for the Pacifica Radio Network. While there, she was a Capitol Hill correspondent for their 2006 Election Special, and a Washington reporter for the daily national newscast Free Speech Radio News. In addition, she worked as an editorial assistant for C-SPAN’s Distance Learning Series—US Government and Politics. Prior coming to the United States, Yanmei was an international news producer at the China Central Television. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in English and International Studies at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, and earned a Master’s Degree in Mass Communication from Miami University. She also has a Master’s Degree in Finance from the George Washington University. After more than two years on Capitol Hill, Yanmei is still amazed and fascinated by how differently the U.S. government operates from that of her own.

Matt Laslo first began at CNC as an intern, and he didn’t look back. He has been reporting for CNC since 2006 as a freelancer. He got his start in journalism covering town council and school board meetings for The News of Delaware County, a local paper in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He then moved on to cover entertainment for the Metro, Philadelphia Edition. In 2006 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Covenant College. During his last year of college he got his start in radio as the news director for WKLT, The Kilt – Covenant’s internet radio station.