Jennifer Oldham
is a freelance journalist who has spent decades traversing North America to report groundbreaking stories. She donned a beekeeping suit in Utah for a Yale E360 piece and walked southern Colorado鈥檚 oldest irrigation ditches for National Geographic. She investigated fire policy for ProPublica and recounted a harrowing rescue for The Washington Post. She documented the pandemic鈥檚 life-altering impacts for the Post and the West鈥檚 agenda-setting politics for Politico. Oldham uncovered how speculators are eyeing scarce Rocky Mountain water for an award-winning piece in Civil Eats. She edited complex narratives that appeared in The聽New York Times聽and on聽Public Radio International.
As a national correspondent at Bloomberg News, Oldham crisscrossed Alaska in a state trooper plane for a聽Businessweek profile, visited the westernmost point in the United States鈥攐n Kauai鈥攆or an exclusive, and tramped through the tick-infested Allegheny National Forest on a hunt for abandoned oil and gas wells. Her willingness to go beyond offices brings stories to life, whether riding straight up Copper Mountain on a snowmobile in the sub-zero, pre-dawn hours to measure snowfall, or spending six days with a long-haul trucker.
In 15 years at the Los Angeles Times, Oldham shared in two Pulitzer Prizes and pioneered the paper鈥檚 aviation coverage after terrorist attacks on the Sept. 11, 2001. She traveled to Canada to document the lifelong impacts of another attack at Los Angeles International Airport, was among the first reporters after 9/11 to ride in a cargo jet鈥檚 jump seat to chronicle how the federal government was updating its highways in the sky, and rode in a small plane across the Grand Canyon for a Page One piece on the lasting effects of among the nation鈥檚 first jet accidents. She speaks English and French, and is a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists, Solutions Journalism Network, and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
