Brenna Swanston

Brenna Swanston started her career as a reporter for an alternative weekly newspaper on California’s Central Coast. There, she covered education, agriculture and environmental issues. Her diverse reporting included elementary school bullying, dual language immersion programs in primary schools, foreign farmworker employment rights, mental healthcare in county jails, stories from local Muslim communities and the environmental impacts of unmanaged target shooting in national forests.

In the 2016 Better Newspapers Contest, the California Newspaper Publishers Association recognized Brenna’s stories in the categories of agricultural reporting, profile features and education coverage.

In 2018, Brenna moved to North Carolina, where she contributed a three-part series to Charlotte’s alternative weekly paper covering the city’s impactful role in school segregation. These stories explored Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools’ leadership in racial and socioeconomic segregation trends through history, along with the continued persistence of segregation in Charlotte’s public schools today.

Brenna’s series placed second for long-form news story in the 2020 Association of Alternative Newsmedia Awards. It also placed second for education reporting in the 2019 North Carolina Press Association Editorial Contest.

In between reporting gigs, Brenna worked as a remote freelance writer and traveled the world, backpacking solo through Europe, South America, Central America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Since 2020, she has lived in California and concentrated her career on education-focused web content. Brenna believes education is a powerful experience that should be equitably accessible to all, and she hopes her work with Forbes Advisor can bring readers a little closer to the academic and professional careers they want.

Expertise

• Higher education
• Primary and secondary education
• Careers
• College rankings

Achievements

• Award-winning education reporter
• Advocate for education equity and accessibility

Other Publications

• Then and Now: Segregation in CMS Still Pervades
• How Segregation Survives in Schools
• Students Discuss the Impacts of Inequity
• Jimenez Elementary language program going strong
• The bully effect : Why kids bully, whom it hurts, and how to put an end to it

Education

Bachelor’s degree in journalism, news editorial, with a minor in religious studies from California Polytechnic State University

Honors & Awards

• ASSOCIATION OF ALTERNATIVE NEWSMEDIA (AAN) AWARDS 2020:
  Second Place: Long-Form News Story
• NORTH CAROLINA PRESS ASSOCIATION EDITORIAL CONTEST 2019:
  Second Place: Education Reporting
• CALIFORNIA NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION (CNPA) BETTER NEWSPAPERS CONTEST 2016:
  First Place: Agricultural Reporting
  Honorable Mention: Profile Feature Story
  Honorable Mention: Coverage of Education
• COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION PINNACLE AWARDS 2015:
  Third Place: Arts & Entertainment Story
• CNPA CAMPUS EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM CONTEST 2015:
  First Place: Profile Feature Story