{"id":7156,"date":"2026-09-30T17:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T21:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/?p=7156"},"modified":"2026-10-23T20:37:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T00:37:31","slug":"emmanuel-felton-an-unconventional-journey-into-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/2026\/09\/30\/emmanuel-felton-an-unconventional-journey-into-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmanuel Felton: An Unconventional Journey into Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Professor Emmanuel Felton grew up with a keen interest in the world around him, but it wasn\u2019t until Hurricane Katrina hit his hometown of New Orleans in 2005 that he considered the issues his own community was facing. The hurricane left many low-income Black communities displaced and permanently impacted by the poor emergency response.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat really hit home for me,\u201d Felton said, \u201cto see how much inequality was still existing in our own country.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A senior in high school, Felton realized the power of journalism to interrogate structural racism in American policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the journalistic curiosity the tragedy had sparked in him, Felton would go on to major in finance at Emory University in Atlanta. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felton initially thought he wanted to become a banker \u2014 an idea \u201cwhich seems crazy\u201d in hindsight, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After college, he considered law. He took the LSAT and got a job at the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010, where he worked with lawyers to investigate legal civil rights complaints in the South. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felton enjoyed working with communities and being trusted with sensitive stories, but he couldn\u2019t envision himself dealing with the legal technicalities of a court case for the rest of his life. He also didn\u2019t see the potential for law to resolve the enduring racial issues in the United States. He did see that power in journalism, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, Felton began to explore a career in journalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was one problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never wrote for a student newspaper, so I didn\u2019t have any clips,\u201d Felton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That didn\u2019t deter Felton. He applied to Columbia University\u2019s Graduate School of Journalism. In 2012, he moved to New York to attend the program\u2019s investigative reporting track. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduating, Felton completed a yearlong education reporting fellowship at Columbia. In 2014, he landed his first reporting job at The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news outlet focused on education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI took sort of a different path than a lot of folks,\u201d Felton said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At The Hechinger Report, he published a story about the lack of federal oversight of school desegregation efforts across the United States<\/a>. The story, co-published with The Nation, won a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, an honor presented by Hunter College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat made that the perfect first job is I was able to do very ambitious journalism very early on in my career,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think that’s really set me up to have a strong career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felton continued reporting on race when he joined Buzzfeed News in 2019. There, he wrote a widely circulated story<\/a> on the experiences of Black police officers who were at the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot; the story offered a unique, untold perspective of that day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was really emotional to talk to those guys,\u201d Felton said. \u201cI was talking to them after what was one of the craziest days of their lives.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, Felton was hired at The Washington Post as the newsroom\u2019s first race and ethnicity reporter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt did feel like a moment of validation,\u201d Felton said. \u201cI never really thought I would work for a place like The Washington Post.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the resources of a major national newsroom behind him, Felton continued to pursue his passion for telling impactful stories on race and inequality. He worked at The Post for five years before he was suddenly laid off earlier this year, along with over 300 of the roughly 800 journalists at the paper.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was particularly hard hit on reporters of color, and everybody who covered race like I did,\u201d Felton said. \u201cI was the first \u2014 and I’m guessing, last \u2014 race reporter at The Post.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, Felton has continued to examine race and Black life in America as a freelance journalist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first book, \u201cThe Search for Black Mecca: Untold Stories of America\u2019s New Great Migration,\u201d<\/a> is set to be published by HarperCollins in March 2027. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a lot of ways I’ve been writing this book since I was a kid,\u201d Felton said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Great Migration, which took place from roughly 1910 to 1970, saw six million Black people leave the South for cities in the North and West. Felton\u2019s book explores a more recent reverse migration of millions of Black people moving back to the South since the 1990s. Through a compilation of stories, Felton seeks to understand this migration and examine \u201chow the North and West failed to become the promised land.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felton is already developing his second book project with the support of the Watchdog Writers Group Fellowship at the Missouri School of Journalism<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is also teaching at Hunter College, where he first taught Investigative Reporting in 2020 and 2021. This time, he is helping students build healthier media consumption habits through News Literacy in a Digital Age.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of Felton\u2019s students in News Literacy in a Digital Age are non-journalists. That excites him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it’s important for journalists to be teaching non-journalists,\u201d he said, adding that journalism is about \u201cinforming the public and having a healthy democracy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felton\u2019s career in journalism has taught him the importance of being resilient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His advice to students aspiring to enter the field echoes that lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you really want to do it, you have to keep a passion for it, because there are many reasons not to do it,\u201d Felton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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