BPR welcomed its newest reporter, Felicia Sonmez, earlier this fall. When she's not covering Western North Carolina's significant growth and development, you can find her exploring outdoors. Get to know Felicia in this installment of the "Meet Team BPR" profile series.
Team BPR: Tell us about yourself, Felicia.
Felicia: I’m BPR’s growth and development reporter. I moved to Asheville in October 2023. Before that, I worked for more than a dozen years as a print reporter in Washington, D.C., and Beijing, China. I grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and go back there often to visit family and friends.
I was raised by my mother, aunts and uncle, who were all born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. My father’s side of the family is from Turkey. As a teenager, I was fortunate to be able to do two summer homestays abroad: I lived for one summer with a family in a small city in Japan, and another summer with a family in San Jose, Costa Rica. Both of those experiences had a big impact on me and ignited a lifelong love of embracing the unknown, learning about new places and meeting new people through cultural immersion.
After graduating from college, I spent a year as an English teacher in Beijing and was thinking of joining the Foreign Service when an opportunity arose to move to D.C. and work as a reporter covering the 2008 presidential election for a Japanese newspaper. I gave it a try and quickly realized I loved journalism.
Since then, I’ve covered beats including Congress and the White House as a national political reporter in D.C. I also returned to Beijing and spent several years there covering China’s society, economy and politics as a foreign correspondent and editor.
Team BPR: What attracts you to work in public media and for Blue Ridge Public Radio?
Felicia: What excites me most about public media – and local news coverage in particular -- is that it’s our job to be a reliable source of information and to serve and reflect our entire community.
In a world where the media environment has become fragmented and there’s so much mis- and disinformation around, there’s a real need for audiences to have a news source they can trust. And in an era when it’s so easy for people to simply choose to read stories about topics they’re already interested in, it’s vital for there to be news outlets that introduce readers and listeners to new topics, to broaden and deepen their understanding of the world and each other.
We’re here to listen, to ask questions, to bear witness, to investigate and to hold people and institutions accountable, all at a time when local news matters more than ever. The growth and development beat is one where I feel there’s an especially strong demand for insight into how the sweeping changes in the region are affecting Western North Carolinians.
Working at BPR is a dream – not only because of the immense talent and dedication of our staff, but also because everyone is so incredibly kind, generous, inclusive and fun. It’s been amazing to meet so many sustaining members around town and realize how much our journalism matters. I’m honored to be part of our team and our community.
Team BPR: When you’re not working on a story, what do you enjoy doing?
Felicia: I love going on road trips, refurbishing furniture and listening to live music. But as you can probably tell from the photo above, one of my biggest joys is spending time outside.
I wasn’t always a big outdoor adventurer, but during the first few months of the pandemic, in 2020, one of my best friends persuaded me to go on my first camping trip in ages. We went to Seneca Rocks, in West Virginia, and I had way more fun than I thought I would. Then she persuaded me to go stand-up paddle-boarding at Assateague National Seashore… then backpacking in the Blue Ridge Mountains… then snow-shoeing in the Adirondacks.
Now, I’m hooked. I obtained my Wilderness First Aid certification last year and love to go hiking, camping, paddling and volunteering outside any chance I get. This summer, I participated in a trail-building workshop held by the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, where I put on a hard hat and learned how to use different tools to help construct a stretch of trail at Hudson Highlands State Park in New York.
Here in Western North Carolina, so far I’ve been camping at Lake Powhatan and Pisgah National Forest. For me, the natural beauty of the region is one of the most exciting things about living in Asheville, and I can’t wait to get out there and do some more exploring.
Team BPR: What are you currently listening to?
Felicia: Aside from the work of our incredible BPR News team, these days I have been enjoying listening to 1A and Latino USA. I love a lot of different kinds of music; some of my favorite artists are Janelle Monáe, Hiatus Kaiyote, Khruangbin, PJ Morton, Metric, Noname and Kings of Convenience.
