Jonathan Franklin
Jonathan Franklin is a digital reporter on the News desk covering general assignment and breaking national news.
For the last few years, Franklin has been reporting and covering a broad spectrum of local and national news in the nation's capital. Prior to NPR, he served as a digital multiskilled journalist for the TEGNA-owned CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., WUSA. While at WUSA, Franklin covered and reported on some of the major stories over the last two years – the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the Black/African American community, D.C.'s racial protests and demonstrations following the death of George Floyd, the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
A scan of Franklin's byline will find hundreds of local breaking news stories, engaging ledes and well-calibrated anecdotes that center the individuals and communities in service of the journalism he's pursuing.
Prior to WUSA, Jonathan produced and reported for various ABC and CW affiliates across the country and was a freelance multimedia journalist for The Washington Informer in Washington, D.C. He began his journalism career at WDCW in Washington.
A native of Columbia, South Carolina, Franklin earned his master's degree in journalism with an emphasis in broadcast and digital journalism from Georgetown University and his undergraduate degrees in English, Humanities and African/African American Studies from Wofford College.
Franklin is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., both the National and Washington Associations of Black Journalists, Online News Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists.
In his spare time, Franklin enjoys traveling to new cities and countries, watching movies, reading a good novel, and all alongside his favorite pastime: brunch.
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Officials in Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota and New York reported their first cases of the variant on Thursday, one day after the first U.S. case was identified in California. -
To all those holiday present procrastinators out there (you know who you are): Be sure to ship that holiday gift sooner rather than later to get those presents to their destination before December 25.
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The individual returned from South Africa on Nov. 22 and had mild symptoms. Cases have been found in more than 20 countries, less than a week after the worrying new variant was first identified.
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Many major retailers and fast-food chains have announced they will be closed this Thanksgiving. A few, however, will stay open for customers.
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A child who was injured in the attack on a Christmas parade in the Wisconsin city has died, prosecutors said as they filed five counts of first-degree intentional homicide against Darrell Brooks Jr.
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At least six people died and 62 others were injured, according to authorities in Waukesha, Wis. Officials have also identified one suspect.
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The images show two suspects getting out of a Mercedes armed with guns and wearing sweatshirts, then approaching the rapper, police said.
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The 23-year-old Black massage therapist died days after an encounter with police in August 2019.
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Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam spent more than a half-century being thought of as murderers of one of the nation's most important Black leaders in 1965.
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Students at the prominent historically Black university in Washington, D.C., had been protesting poor housing conditions since Oct. 12. The details of the agreement were not immediately available.
