EMILY SWANSON / NYC-based journalist

In August 2022, I moved from Minneapolis to NYC to attend the CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

I had never been a reporter before — but I was a high school English teacher for 11 years and a restaurant chef for about eight years. (Yes, you read that right).

I started at the J-school reporting extensively in the South Bronx for the CUNY-run Mott Haven Herald and Hunts Point Express. I completed an internship in spring 2023 with my favorite local news outlet, THE CITY, and that summer, I was a full-time intern with the Bronx Times, where I was later hired as one of only two staff reporters.

My reporting experience has taken me all around city streets, community and government meetings and courts and into some deep investigative work. I have examined a lack of race data reporting by the Minneapolis Police Department, tracked suicides at Rikers Island and researched repeated violations at New York City’s daycares for a news package that won a third-place Eppy award in 2024.

In July 2023, I talked Bronx issues with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes Hunts Point. I also worked another news package at the J-school, South Bronx Businesses Battle Back, which won a first-place Mark of Excellence award from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

With the Bronx Times, I cover the entire borough in terms of politics, legislation, arts, development, nonprofit work, crime and courts, schools, food and anything else that matters to the community.

I also started writing for The Guardian US on a sporadic/occasional basis! You can see my bylines here.

I live in the South Bronx neighborhood of Port Morris. Outside of work, I enjoy photography, cooking and watching the Yankees, Liberty, Knicks, and my hometown team, the Minnesota Timberwolves.