We monitor the most powerful halls in one of America’s poorest big cities.
In 2021, an up-and-coming journalist named Lawrence McGlynn teamed up with respected city hall reporter Denise Clay-Murray and longtime consumer advocate Lance Haver to launch The Philadelphia Hall Monitor.
Several years and some surprisingly prestigious award nominations later, we’d like to think we’ve become your trusted source for local news and consumer survival tips you won’t find anywhere else.
Our reporters regularly sit through hours of city council meetings, dig through piles of documents, and ask tough questions other media overlook. Why? Because we’re committed to addressing Philadelphia’s poverty epidemic — and challenging those who sustain it.
Subscribe to our newsletter and tune into our weekly broadcast for independent, reliable news and context, fair government scrutiny, and consumer survival tips in the city we all share.
Meet The Team
Denise Clay
Co-founder & Reporter
Denise Clay-Murray is the co-host of Philadelphia Hall Monitor. In addition to her hosting duties, she has been an independent journalist since 2005, and has covered politics in Philadelphia for a variety of news outlets including the Philadelphia Sunday Sun, Philadelphia Magazine, Love Now Media, Resolve Philadelphia, City and State Pennsylvania and Billy Penn. Her work has also appeared on the BBC World Service, the Australian Broadcasting Company, Votebeat and Time.com.
Denise previously covered politics and education for the Elmira (NY) Star-Gazette, the Reading Eagle-Times, the Bucks County Courier Times, and the Philadelphia Tribune. She is a graduate of Temple University’s Klein School of Journalism and lives in Wilmington, Delaware with her husband Chris.
Lawrence McGlynn
Co-founder & Reporter
Larry McGlynn is a journalist and producer for the Philadelphia Hall Monitor. He is a 2019 graduate of the Temple University Master of Journalism program, where he was a Reporting Fellow for Temple’s online news outlet, Philadelphia Neighborhoods. Before entering the world of journalism, he was an English teacher. McGlynn lives in West Philadelphia with his wife, Chrissy, son Owen, and cats.
Lance Haver
Co-founder & Reporter
Vanessa Maria Graber
Reporter
Vanessa Maria Graber is an award-winning bilingual journalist, educator, and community organizer. She is a reporter/producer at the Philadelphia Hall Monitor and leads community engagement efforts. Vanessa Maria also works at the media and technology advocacy organization, Free Press, as the News Voices Director. In this role, she connects local communities and the newsrooms that serve them via public engagement, advocacy campaigns and collaborative projects.
She has over 20 years of experience working as a journalist at radio stations across the United States including WUSL, WJJZ, WDAD, WIUP, WCHL, WCOM, WPEB, and G-Town Radio. In 2016, she co-founded PhillyCAM’s community radio station, WPPM-LP FM, where she served as the station manager prior to joining Free Press. At WPPM she helped launch the Philadelphia Hall Monitor radio program and led news production at the station.
Vanessa Maria has a Master’s degree in Adult Education and Communications Technology from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and was a Roy H. Park Doctoral Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She has conducted media research in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Cuba and is a leading expert in community media, community engagement, local news and Latinx media.
