Chelsea Cirruzzo
Daniel Payne
BOSTON, June 2, 2025 — STAT, the leading news source for tough-minded coverage of health, medicine, and the life sciences, has added two reporters to its Washington, D.C. team: Chelsea Cirruzzo and Daniel Payne.
Since the election last November, reporters across its newsroom have fanned out to cover how federal health agencies are being affected by the actions of the Trump administration. The addition of STAT’s two new reporters will result in even more coverage of President Trump, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the most important agencies and individuals shaping the U.S. health care system.
Cirruzzo, who starts this week, has been a health care reporter at Politico, where she wrote the flagship Politico Pulse newsletter. She previously worked for Axios, U.S. News & World Report, and Inside Health Policy, and is a graduate of American University. Earlier in her career, she spent a year reporting on the challenges of caring for an aging homeless population as a journalism fellow for the Gerontological Society of America.
Payne, who started at STAT in April, was also previously a reporter at Politico. He covered health care policy and for a time was the lead author of Politico Pulse. Prior to Politico, he was the executive editor of a local paper in DeSoto County, Miss., where he oversaw aggressive coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and moved the publication to a digital-first approach. He is a Tennessee native and a graduate of the University of Mississippi.
“There is no other news organization anywhere that is producing as ambitious and important stories about health and medicine, day after day, hour after hour,” said Rick Berke, STAT’s co-founder and executive editor.
STAT’s audience has recently surged, as have subscriptions: Average weekly visits to its website increased 57% in the first three months of 2025 compared with the weekly average for 2024, and subscriptions this year were up 9% in just the first three months. Not since the first months of the Covid pandemic has STAT seen such audience growth.
Stepped-up coverage has included a two-part project on chronic disease issues, a focus of the Trump administration and the Make America Healthy Again movement, as well as deep analysis of a highly anticipated report from the MAHA Commission. Reporters have been quick and insightful with stories on topics ranging from RFK Jr.’s decision to drop Covid shot recommendations to the Trump administration’s cancellation of funding for the development of pandemic flu vaccines by the biotech company Moderna.
STAT has continued to also focus on other big stories in health and medicine outside Washington. A team of reporters was dispatched late last week to Chicago to cover the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, where they also produced a special newsletter and hosted a live event.
In addition to its new D.C. hires, STAT is bringing on board a new data analyst, Julissa Mijares. Originally from San Antonio, Mijares is a recent graduate of Boston University in data science and mathematical statistics. While there, she also served as a technical team member and project manager for Spark!, BU’s experimental learning lab.
On Tuesday evening, STAT will be honored in New York with its first National Magazine Award for general excellence.
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About STAT
Founded in 2015, STAT is a digital media company that focuses on delivering fast, deep, and tough-minded journalism about health, medicine and the life sciences. STAT takes you inside academic labs, biotech boardrooms, and political backrooms, casting a critical eye on scientific discoveries, scrutinizing corporate strategies, and chronicling the roiling battles for talent, money, and market share. With an award-winning newsroom, STAT provides indispensable insights and exclusive stories on the technologies, personalities, power brokers, and political forces driving massive changes in the life sciences industry — and a revolution in human health.
STAT has twice been named a Pulitzer Prize finalist and has won three George Polk Awards and a number of prestigious journalism prizes.
STAT is affiliated with Boston Globe Media, and its headquarters is in Boston. It also has reporters in Washington, D.C., New York City, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, and Minneapolis.
About Boston Globe Media
Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC is a locally owned, award-winning media company serving Boston and New England for over 153 years. Its cornerstone is The Boston Globe, a 27-time Pulitzer Prize-winning news source and one of the most successful metro news organizations in the United States. The Globe is headquartered in Boston with regional bureaus in Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The Globe has been successfully growing its direct subscriber base, today boasting the highest total number of subscribers the organization has had since 2008. The Globe hosts events that connect community members to its journalism and provides a range of digital and home-delivered advertising solutions that reach more consumers than any other New England media brand. Boston Globe Media’s portfolio includes The Boston Globe, Globe.com, Boston.com, STAT, The B-Side, Globe Publishing Services, Globe Events, Studio/B, and Boston magazine.