Waylon Cunningham

East Texas native Waylon Cunningham, 29, has been a reporter for a number of small town and big city newspapers across the US. He is currently the first Sir Harry Evans Global Fellow, selected for his enterprise, tenacity, and commitment to rigorous fact-finding. 

His reporting for the Los Angeles Times revealed how bureaucratic failures forced the LA Sheriff’s Department to rehire deputies it previously fired for involvement in a gang-like secret society that celebrated police violence. In 2019 he won the Tennessee Associated Press’s Malcolm Law Award for Investigative Reporting following his series on how a local government’s desperate insurance scheme nearly bankrupted the region’s independent pharmacies. 

He studied philosophy at Oberlin College and graduated with a master’s degree in journalism in 2020 from the University of Southern California, where he was the Selden Ring Fellow for Investigative Journalism.