Megan Specia

About

I am an international correspondent for The New York Times, focusing on coverage of the U.K. and Ireland with a background in international breaking news and visual storytelling. I am a creative and passionate journalist with both reporting and editing skills, as well as specialities in verifying social media content and multimedia journalism. Over a decade long career, I've covered major stories in the field from the protests against police killings in Baltimore and Ferguson to the aftermath of the 2015 Paris and Brussels attacks to the refugee crisis in Europe. I've reported on the fallout from the war in Syria from refugee camps in Jordan and Greece. I reported on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. I was selected by the International Women's Media Foundation for a reporting fellowship in Rwanda in 2017 to cover under-reported stories there. I was selected for a second fellowship from the organization in 2018 to travel to South Sudan, where I reported on the growing risk of famine there as a result of the country's brutal civil war and then traveled to Uganda to document the resulting refugee crisis. Since relocating to London in 2019, I have followed female candidates on Britain's general election in 2019, reported on police misconduct, trekked through the muddy banks of the Thames with mudlarks, reported on the roll out of the coronavirus vaccine across the country, and documented the rolling back of rights for asylum seekers, among other stories. I also contribute to coverage of major news stories across Europe, and reported from Ukraine on the impact of the war there. I worked for the Dublin-based news organization Storyful for four years, discovering and verifying user generated content published on social media, as one of the first 10 members of staff prior to its acquisition by NewsCorp. I was the 2015 Donald Murray Visiting Journalist at the University of New Hampshire. I am currently completing a Master's Degree in International Affairs at King's College in London.