OLYMPIA — Two reporters — LaVendrick Smith and Izumi Hansen — will be covering the 2016 Legislative Session from the WNPA Olympia News Bureau for the Bainbridge Island Review and other newspapers across the state.

Smith was in Olympia last year with the University of Washington’s journalism program, and has also been an intern reporter last year for The Tacoma News Tribune.

On his time last year in the state’s capital, he noted: “I reported on issues that had a real-life impact on Washington state residents and, for the first time in my years of journalism, felt I was contributing work that mattered.”

Smith said he is looking forward to improving his skills and to “continue to stretch and mold my reporting abilities this session.”

Hansen has been a student in the UW journalism program for four years. She worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center during the summer of 2014 as an intern, where she said she developed her writing skills and gained a better understanding of the inner works of government sites not affiliated with legislative aspects of government.

She has also been part of the staff at the International Examiner, Seattle’s Asian Pacific Islander newspaper, where she has been involved in web posting, editing and short-article writing.