Mary C. Curtis, an NPR contributor based in Charlotte, N.C., was previously a writer and editor for The New York Times, The Charlotte Observer and The Baltimore Sun. She is a contributor to the "Fox News Rising" morning TV show in Charlotte and The Root. A former Nieman fellow at Harvard, she also contributes to the Nieman Watchdog political and media blog, and in 2004 was inducted into the Region IV National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.