work
Eileen Markey believes the best reporting is a mix of detective work and listening to voices often ignored. It is defined by critical thinking, honesty and independence. Trained under legendary investigative journalist Wayne Barrett, Markey knows the power of public records to reveal the truth and relishes the hunt for facts. She’s as skilled at sifting through arcane documents as she is at sitting long enough and listening closely enough to learn an untold story. Her career reveals this combination of hard-headed digging and open-ended storytelling.
In print and online
Markey has written for The New York Times, the New York Daily News, New York magazine, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, City Limits, America: The Jesuit Review, the Daily Beast and The Intercept and she's worked as a producer on New York Public Radio. Her work is characterized by deep research, a historical gaze and an ear for the poetry in reporting. Her articles have examined shown the devastation that subprime lending wrought on a working class community, told the stories of Central American migrants at U.S. border camps that exist outside international law, catalogued the toll of violence in Bronx neighborhoods, delved into the long term toll of racist public policies and told the stories of citizens and activists working to create change.
The New York daily news
Crucified, As Usual: The Coronavirus Hits Working-Class New York Hardest - April 2020
The DAILY BEAST
On the Border in Trump’s Twilight Zone for Migrants - February 2020
COMMONWEAL
Resentment and Resignation in Nicaragua - October 2019
America: The Jesuit Review
Why Journalists Need to Resist the Label of ‘The Opposition’ - April 2017
New york MAGAZINE
Protest, and a Hunger Strike, Over Haitian Immigrant Deported 24 Years Later - January 2010
The Village Voice
The Riverton, Latest Collapsed New York Housing Icon, Auctioned for $120M - March 2010
America: The Jesuit Review
Can We Use Public Health Methods to Cure the Disease of Gun Violence - October 2018
Canadian Catholics Grapple with a History of ‘Whitewashing’ Indigenous Children - June 2018
How Standing Rock Became a Spiritual Pilgrimage for Activists - June 2017
Busted Halo
New York’s Island of the Dead - June 2010
Freedom and Beauty: Iraqi Refugee Artists Find a Home in a Hell’s Kitchen Church - May 2009
City Limits
From Haiti to a Housing Crisis: Earthquake Evacuees Struggle - September 2010
Hey, That’s My Prisoner: Pols Want the Numbers - February 2007
JACOBIN
Canonization for the Masses - November 2018
THE NEW REPUBLIC
What Happened to Irish America? - March 2018
The New York daily news
Why We Need Christmas Now - December 2019
The New York Times
Mamaroneck Settlement Doesn’t Quell the Debate - July 2007
Where West Africa Goes Straight to Video - April 2005
New York magazine
As More Landlords Stagger Under Debts, Thousands of Tenants Face Abandonment - December 2009
The Village Voice
Herc’s Building Saved, But What About Other Mitchell Lamas? - March 2008
Trinity House Residents Seek ‘Kool Herc’ Reprieve - March 2008
Tenant Harassment Bill to Become Law - March 2008
Subprime Mortgage Wasteland in the Bronx - March 2008
Kool Herc Fights to Save Birthplace of Hip Hop - January 2008
The Wall Street Journal
In Borough Park, Whispers About a Loner - July 2011
City Repair Charges Turn Into Liens - August 2011
Man Poisons Wife Then Himself, Police Say - March 2011
Drawn to City’s Glamour, Cut Down by a Serial Killer - January 2011
ON the air
Markey helped write, produce and edit WNYC’s campaign-coverage site It's a Free Country and contributed audio-rich reporting on hunger, government services and voting access and participation. As an occasional producer on the Peabody award-winning Brian Lehrer Show, she researched and prepared in-depth interviews with policy makers, authors and other public figures.
For Low-Income Neighborhoods, Tax Refunds with High Price Tags - April 2011
In Uncontested Districts, an Election But No Choice - October 2010
Obama Voters Waiting for Inspiration - October 2010
In Espada’s District, Votes for the Other Guy - September 2010
in the classroom (and on the streets)
www.lehman.edu
Markey believes it is a responsibility and privilege to help inspire the next generation of journalists. As an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Lehman College of the City University of New York, she teaches courses on reporting, media ethics and the role of race and racism in shaping U.S. media. Her students learn to cover news in the neighborhoods and streets of the Bronx.
During the height of the COVID pandemic her students collected oral histories of life under quarantine, contributing to a Covid in the Bronx Archive at the Bronx County Historical Society. She taught her Spring 2020 Reporting II class as an investigative workshop, leading students in a major project that dug through hundreds of lawsuits filed against the City of New York and the NYPD alleging police misconduct. The investigation found the city was paying millions of dollars each year to settle lawsuits about officers accused over and over again of misconduct and abuse. The resulting piece was published in The Intercept.
Since 2010 she has led college-credit journalism courses for high school students in Lehman’s College Now Summer Multimedia Arts Academy in first-hand reporting and research on issues that affect their lives in the Bronx such as health justice, gang violence, policing, gentrification and housing; at the end of each summer they produce a news magazine.
From 2012 to 2014 she also taught newswriting and journalism courses at Hunter College and Long Island University, always with a focus on developing real world, on-the-street experience as a working journalist.
On the shelVES
On a hot and dusty December day in 1980, the bodies of four American women—three of them Catholic nuns—were pulled from a hastily dug grave in a field outside San Salvador…
Markey relied on archives, declassified government records and deep, skilled interviewing in four countries to piece together a Cold War story of love and revolution in A Radical Faith: The Assassination of Sister Maura, published in 2016 by Nation Books.
The first anthology of the groundbreaking work of legendary investigative reporter Wayne Barrett, who uncovered Trump's essential nature in 1979 — and whose 40 years of journalism for the Village Voice explains how the country got to the spot it is in today.
In the Archives
In addition to her own reporting, Markey has provided research assistance for organizations and for other writers.
For Good Jobs NY, a not-for-profit focused on accountability for government subsidies, Markey was the lead researcher on a comprehensive project mapping the influence-peddling that created the new Yankee Stadium.
Markey provided research assistance to author Robin Shulman for Eat the City (Broadway Books, 2013) and to author Joe Flood for The Fires (Riverhead, 2010).