About Gwendolyn Craig

Gwen is an award-winning journalist covering environmental policy for the Explorer since January 2020. She also takes photos and videos for the Explorer's magazine and website. She is a current member of the Legislative Correspondents Association of New York. Gwen has worked at various news outlets since 2015. Prior to moving to upstate New York, she worked for a D.C. Metro-area public relations firm, producing digital content for clients including the World Health Organization, the Low Income Investment Fund and Rights and Resources Initiative. She has a master's degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She has bachelor's degrees in English and journalism, with a concentration in ecology and evolutionary biology, from the University of Connecticut. Gwen is also a part-time figure skating coach. Contact her at (518) 524-2902 or gwen@adirondackexplorer.org. Sign up for Gwen’s newsletter here.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Vanessa says

    Gwen, this is a fantastic article, congrats! Great lede, compelling interviews – the works. I’m enjoying watching your voice grow authoritative in the region. 🙂

    Two different reactions:

    1)

    Because I respect you as an up-and-comer, I want to address the way you describe George Floyd’s murder. Although how the event is described in print is “controversial,” I will note that many national news journalists have used the word “murder” in spaces that are not just editorials or opinion pieces.

    Perhaps you have guidelines or norms to adhere to. That’s fair. But I again state my strong opinion that although there is truth in the world, there is no true objectivity. Striving too hard for objectivity when it cannot be found sometimes does no one favors. Can one arrive at truth by using a word like murder? The state tries to all the time, and that’s why the cops who murdered George Floyd are on trial.

    As a journalist, I don’t think you need to wait for the state to figure out the truth for you. If you speak the truth directly to people, they will respond and support you.

    2)

    I mention the above because as I bet we’ll see in this comments section, there’s nothing you can write that will change the minds of either committed racists, or people too afraid to educate themselves about racism.

    Thanks to the people in charge right now, America is confronting more directly than we have in some time the white supremacist institutions that run our country. As I write this, an entire political party is abandoning itself to embrace overt racism as an electoral strategy.

    We’re in deeply conflicted times. No one, especially not people with white privilege, should be afraid of leaning into that conflict. I do find that the ADK in particular, as a supposed “wilderness” cut off from society, has trouble remembering that it is a normal rural area like the vast majority of the country. It has all of the same challenges and opportunities.

    Defeating racism in the ADK will benefit the region more than I can describe in a comment or even in words. (Which is secondary to the simple moral mandate to do so!) The American future is not a white supremacist one, no matter how long some people decide to cling to that idea.

    To survive into the future, the ADK has to accept that fact. No other option.

  2. Vanessa says

    You’re welcome, Gwen! I hope my comments don’t come off as preachy. I think you’re doing great, and as your influence grows, so does your or any of our responsibilities. 🙂

    Good allyship is both important and a constant struggle. I think we all have lots of work to do before we become true allies. The struggle continues.

  3. David says

    Thank you for this great piece. As a NYC resident who founded and ran a nonprofit in Glens Falls for 15 year, the last 6 months of full time residency in Warren County due to COVID (yes I’m one of those second home owners) has been a reminder of the work which needs to be done here as much as everywhere else. My daily 11 mile bike ride had 3 Confederate flags on it when I started in April. One came down in June. Two steps forward…

  4. Brittany K Christenson says

    Gwen, I really appreciated reading your excellent article tonight. Thank you for taking the time to tell this story at this time.

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