MEGAN BOTEL
writer • reporter • producer
I’m a journalist and radio producer in Los Angeles. Currently, I report and produce at LAist, LA’s NPR affiliate station. I have a particular obsession with human connection, and the ways in which humans have become massively disconnected from each other in our modern world. In 2024, I hosted, reported and produced an eight-part series on the loneliness crisis: How To Not Be Lonely in LA, for the podcast How To LA. I’ve also contribute as a freelance writer and audio producer to Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, PBS and other national outlets. My work focuses on health, mental well-being, religion and the environment.
Check out some of my work:
WRITING
“More People Are Pulling Away From Religion, But There are Ways to Find Your ‘Church.” LAist, 2024
“Men Are Lonely. We Explore Some Reasons Why, And What Can Be Done About It.” LAist, 2024
“From A ‘Lonelye Road’ To An Artist Haven: How This Music Community Helps Angelenos Feel Less Alone.” LAist, 2024
“Loneliness In Cities Is Real. Four Ways To Work Through It.” LAist, 2024
“A Daughter Who Lost Her Mother In Hate Crime Works In Her Memory To Shine A Light On Antisemitism.” LAist, 2022.
“These women say they were abused by Southern Baptist leaders. Nowthey’re forcing a reckoning.” Washington Post, 2021
“These Native American women are reclaiming and ‘stolen’ part of their identity: their language.” Washington Post, 2021
“Living with Fire: What California Can Learn from Native Burns.” Huffington Post, 2021
“Learning online without a home: How families devastated by Oregon’s fires are trying to keep up with school.” Washington Post, 2021
“How Black women worked to secure Joe Biden’s election as president.” USA TODAY, 2020
“‘Women doing whatever we want: the little-known fight to secure women’s financial rights.” Ms. Magazine, 2020
“Behind the growing movement to add more women to history lessons.” Washington Post, 2020
“‘Crucial voices’: the US women leading the fight against voter suppression.” The Guardian, 2020
“The 19th Amendment was ratified 100 years ago. This group is mobilizing the vote today.” Washington Post, 2020
“‘An awakening:’ the George Floyd protests spur surge in Black voter registration.’” The Guardian, 2020
“‘Where are the women?:’ The centennial of the 19th Amendment and rewriting women’s history.” USA TODAY, 2020
“Black voter mobilization efforts begin to bear fruit.” Los Angeles Times, 2020
“AIDS activists feel a sense of déjà vu as they watch the coronavirus policy battle unfold.” Los Angeles Times, 2020
“L.A. woman is drawing attention to another black death at police hands: Breonna Taylor.” Los Angeles Times, 2020
“‘Can I have sex during the Coronavirus pandemic?’ The age of casual hookups may be over.” L.A. TACO, 2020
“One church’s tale of two pandemics, 100 years apart.” Religion News Service, The GroundTruth Project, 2020
AUDIO
A lot of people are lonely in L.A. It’s a huge city, and whether you’re a transplant or a homegrown Angeleno, people all over this town are trying to find their place, and their people. Producer Megan Botel explores these feelings of loneliness – which has recently been declared a nationwide by the U.S. Surgeon General – and how some Angelenos are dealing with it by creating communities and finding new connections in the city. We speak to loneliness expert Cat Moore to understand and, in many ways, re-define our understanding of how loneliness is experienced.
In a nation in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, a lot of us are lonely. But men, typically, are the loneliest. How To LA producer Megan Botel speaks to experts in the male experience to unpack the reasons why men tend to be lonelier than women, the importance of male friendships, and how men can create meaningful connections.
Guests: Richard Reeves, writer, professor and president of the American Institute for Boys and Men; Shannon Carpenter, author of the book
For decades, Americans relied on church, temple, mosque, or other religious institutions for a sense of built in community. But with more and more people disaffiliating from organized religion in recent decades, we, as a society, haven't found a replacement for those spaces, and the community and sanctity that comes with them. Producer Megan Botel explores what has been lost on a personal and community level. Guests: Diane Winston, professor of media and religion at USC; Craig Taubman, founder and artistic director of the Pico Union Project
It turns out that in many cities across the U.S., every Friday, you can find a Shabbat dinner to attend – and you do not have to be Jewish. The non-profit OneTable that organizes these events says it's all about building community and practicing the long lost "art of gathering." Producer Megan Botel chats with OneTable and attended a recent OneTable Shabbat dinner to tap into the power of weekly gathering.
Guests: Dani Kohanzadeh, field director at OneTable; Elizabeth Grossman, Shabbat host through OneTable