Foreign Correspondent; Visiting Professor, Columbia University
UW Majors: Journalism; Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies
In a media landscape often clouded by misinformation, Jacob Kushner has built his career shining light on how U.S. policies and actions shape everyday lives around the world. The award-winning international journalist, author, and educator has exposed corruption, chronicled global mass migration, investigated terrorism and extremism, exposed prejudice, and amplified historically silenced voices from marginalized communities.
Kushner credits UW–Madison for helping him — and many of his fellow journalism school alumni — develop a critical eye, a global curiosity, and a moral responsibility to ensure powerful individuals and institutions do what’s right.
“There are so many UW graduates doing incredible international journalism,” he says, pointing to Badgers reporting from Russia, Mexico, India, and beyond. “You can see the Wisconsin Idea in action through the work journalists are doing all over the world.”
Even as a student, before earning degrees in journalism and Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian studies, Kushner was tackling investigative reporting on a local level. He wrote and edited for La Comunidad News and interned with Wisconsin Watch, where his reporting uncovered labor issues affecting immigrant workers on dairy farms and exposed how Wisconsin’s governor and other officials were violating state travel policy.
He credits the UW with preparing him to understand what any editor would want: strong ideas, factual accuracy, solid reporting, and writing that brings stories to life. Some lessons, however — like how to freelance and make connections — can only be learned on the ground.
While at the UW, Kushner studied abroad in the Dominican Republic — a decision that has shaped his career. There he met an Associated Press reporter who shared insights into his career as a foreign correspondent. After graduating in May 2010, Kushner moved to the neighboring country of Haiti to report.
Just months before, a catastrophic earthquake killed thousands of people and devastated the Caribbean nation. As a freelancer, he had the freedom and flexibility to dig deeper into the stories that larger outlets were missing. He reported how the U.S. wasted aid money and on the life-threatening conditions facing Haitians who were wrongfully deported from the United States. But he also shared stories of hope. Through a years-long reporting project, Kushner forged relationships with the residents of Canaan, a Haitian city founded by earthquake survivors who built their own self-governing community from scratch.
In the decade since, Kushner has investigated injustice and violence across continents, from Indigenous displacement in Kenya to the persecution of LGBTQ+ refugees in East Africa. His byline has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, National Geographic, Harper’s Magazine, and the Atlantic. He is the author of three books, including Look Away: A True Story of Murders, Bombings, and a Far-Right Campaign to Rid Germany of Immigrants (2024). His next project explores how governments and powerful individuals profit by taking advantage of climate refugees.
Even as his work spans the globe, Kushner stays connected to his academic roots. He has taught courses on magazine reporting and global migration as a visiting professor at Columbia Journalism School, where he earned a master’s degree in political journalism. He’s also returned to UW–Madison to train the next generation of global storytellers as a distinguished visiting lecturer in 2023.
“It was incredible to get the chance to come back as an instructor and learn from these hard-working students,” he says. “Journalism is always changing — and changing fast — so the most important skills they can learn are how to ground all their reporting in evidence, and how to adapt.”