United States
Rust Belt journalist now in D.C., former Vindicator & Arizona Republic reporter. Youngstown native. I love writing long stories about interesting people, and dive deep to bring their struggles and ambitions to life for my audience. I have covered poverty, politics, the climate crisis, corruption, elections, courts, cops, breaking news, business, extremism, and disinformation at a local, regional, and national level.
To see my photo and video work, please scroll down past the featured articles.
The climate crisis is not only taking a devastating toll on humanity with a carousel of increasingly extreme events, but on the planet's biodiversity as a whole. Among those facing immediate peril are polar bears. As Arctic dwellers, they are in a region that is heating at four times the rate of the rest of the world, as reported by NASA scientist Peter Jacobs.
California is considering giving names to major heatwaves similar to the naming system given to hurricanes and winter storms to help underscore the threats they pose as the state enters a likely third year of drought. The threats posed by extreme heat are significant.
A first-place AP award winning investigation into a predatory land contract company buying blighted homes in the Rust Belt and trapping "owners" in bad deals
By GRAIG GRAZIOSI [email protected] YOUNGSTOWN When William Johnson walked into his prospective new home in 2011, he noted immediately that he could see the sky, very clearly, through his roof. There was no skylight. The house is on Chalmers Avenue on the city's South Side, and previously belonged to a man known in the neighborhood as the person you could go to for anything you needed.
US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island explained his anxiety over the lack of congressional movement on climate legislation in a lengthy Twitter thread. The senator made his comments Monday, sharing what he believes are red flags that Congress is not prepared to move on substantive legislation to combat the climate crisis.
"At least there's still Lordstown." That was a common refrain around the Mahoning Valley, an area of Northeast Ohio that includes historic manufacturing centers like Warren, Youngstown, and Lordstown, home to what was once the largest car manufacturing facility on the planet.
If battling massive walls of flame was not enough of an occupational hazard for firefighters, a group of scientists in Nevada have released a study suggesting individuals exposed to wildfire smoke for long periods of time are at greater risk of contracting the coronavirus.
Two imprisoned men - one American, one Russian - will return to their respective homelands after a prisoner swap between the nations granted them their freedom. Former US Marine Trevor Reed was first detained in Russia in 2019, and has not returned home since.
or the past year, the FBI has been hunting down and arresting the Trump supporters who allegedly stormed the Capitol on 6 January.
As autumn's soft first touches chilled Jackson, Wyoming, Gabby Petito's father, Joseph, finally held his daughter again. Earlier this month, Teton County Coroner Dr Brent Blue revealed that Ms Petito died by manual strangulation, and ruled her death a homicide.
This story is copublished with The Delacorte Review, the literary nonfiction journal of the Columbia Journalism School. WHEN THE VINDICATOR DIED, I knew it meant I'd have to leave my hometown. Again. The shuttering of Youngstown, Ohio's daily newspaper in the summer of 2019 meant my days of being a newspaperman in my own city were [...]
By GRAIG GRAZIOSI [email protected] LORDSTOWN There is a perverse anticipation that some people experience when - after a long period of suffering and deterioration - a dying loved one succumbs to their ailment. It's not that we want the loved one to die, and it doesn't lessen the grief that necessarily accompanies the passing of a loved one.
This is an excerpt from "The Promise," an ongoing series from The Big Roundtable about life in Youngstown, Ohio; McAllen, Texas; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. When I was in high school near Youngstown in the early 2000s, the buses would drop us off on the side of the building and we'd enter through a large set of double doors.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Reporter Graig Graziosi had met and interviewed James Reardon Jr. on multiple occasions. Today, he discusses issues surrounding Reardon's arrest Saturday. By Graig Graziosi [email protected] When I asked James Reardon Jr. if people should be afraid of him during an interview in 2017, he told me no.
By GRAIG GRAZIOSI [email protected] YOUNGSTOWN Video At the crossroads of the East Side's main thoroughfares is the Sharonline neighborhood that represents both the one-time vision of a vibrant, growing Youngstown and the reality of the city's decline. McGuffey Road, connecting downtown Youngstown with the East Side, eventually ends in Coitsville.
A day after a fire destroyed the dining area of Cave Creek's Silver Spur Saloon, the Frontier Town restaurant looked more "Mad Max" than "Maverick." Waterlogged drywall hung from the rafters. Soggy tufts of pink insulation layered the cement floor and covered the bar.
Video Work
Once expected to be the next major residential development in Youngstown, the Sharonline neighborhood in the city's northeast corner was never fully populated. Now as the population shrinks, abandoned streets are being closed and returned to nature. But Sharonline is far from dead.
Photography