Jonathan Swan

Jonathan Swan
Swan in 2018
Born	(1985-08-07) 7 August 1985 (age 35) Australia
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	Sydney Grammar School
Occupation	Journalist
Employer	Axios
Spouse(s)	Betsy Woodruff ​ (m. 2019)​
Children	1
Parents	Norman Swan (father) Dr. Lee Sutton (mother)

Jonathan Swan (born 7 August 1985)^[1] is an Australian journalist who works as a political reporter for Axios.

Early life

Swan was born and raised in Australia.^[2] He is Jewish.^[3][4] Swan is the son of physician, journalist, and radio and television broadcaster Norman Swan;^[5] his aunt and uncle are also Australian journalists.^[2] He attended the Sydney Grammar School in Darlinghurst, Sydney.^[6] In Australia, he entered the field of journalism in 2010. He later moved to the United States, and in 2014 held a yearlong fellowship with the American Political Science Association before returning to journalism in 2015 and remaining in the U.S.^[7]

Career

Swan began his career as a national political reporter based in Canberra, Australia's capital city, for Fairfax Media and as a political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald.^[8][9] He joined The Hill in August 2015 as part of their campaign team.^[10]

Swan became a national political reporter for Axios in December 2016.^[11] While at Axios, Swan broke several stories about the Trump administration.^[2][12] Former Washington Post journalist Ronald Kessler claimed in his 2018 book The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game that Swan is among a handful of reporters to whom President Donald Trump feeds information, with instructions to attribute quotes to an unnamed White House official.^[13]

Swan was the first to report that the U.S. would pull out of the Paris climate deal;^[2][14] that Steve Bannon was about to be fired;^[2][15] that Trump would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital;^[2] and that Trump would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive action policy.^[2] Swan broke the news that the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was retiring from Congress.^[2] In September 2018, Swan reported on Axios that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had resigned. Rosenstein remained in his post, and it later emerged that he had offered a letter of resignation that was not accepted. Axios clarified the article, and Swan wrote on Twitter that he "“screwed up by giving it a certainty it didn’t warrant”.^[12]

In August 2020, Swan was praised by people on social media for the manner in which he had conducted an interview with President Trump. During the interview, Swan pointedly questioned and fact-checked numerous false, misleading, or bizarre statements as the President spoke them.^[16] Media columnist for The New York Times Ben Smith wrote that Swan's was "perhaps the best interview of Mr. Trump’s term."^[17]

Recognition

As a member of the Sydney Morning Herald in the Canberra Press Gallery, Swan was presented with the Wallace Brown Award in 2014 for most outstanding young journalist.^[18][19] In 2016, Politico named Swan one of "16 Breakout Media Stars."^[20] In 2020, The Jerusalem Post named Swan in its list of the world's 50 most influential Jews.^[21]

Personal life

He married American reporter Betsy Woodruff of Politico on September 14, 2019. They have one child.^[22] He intends to become an American citizen.^[2]

References