Olivia Cohen is a journalist who reported on many topics ranging from environmental and agricultural issues, energy, higher education, crime and courts, the arts, healthcare, gender and beyond.
Hailing from Minneapolis, Cohen has reported in Chicago, Washington D.C. and across the Midwest and Mississippi River Basin. She worked for Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg News, the Cedar Rapids Gazette with Report for America and Gateway Journalism Review. Her byline has been in many outlets – big and small and in both print and broadcast mediums – including USA Today, Bloomberg Law, The Chicago Sun-Times, The New Lede, Wisconsin Watch and Investigate Midwest.
She currently serves as a reporter and digital producer for the NBC News affiliate KGET-17 in the San Joaquin Valley. In this role her reporting focuses on Central California's environmental and health issues, along with covering the region's agricultural production.
Prior to joining KGET-17, Cohen worked as the energy and environment reporter for The Gazette based in Eastern Iowa, where she reported on water quality issues, conservation efforts, agriculture trends, energy business and environmental health. Within that role, she served as a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.
She also wrote and produced the Gazette's Environment & Outdoors newsletter, which is published every Thursday morning. With Report for America, Cohen was also a contributing writer for the Ag and Water Desk, an independent journalism collaborative focusing on the Mississippi River Basin.
Cohen served as the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Chronicle, Columbia Chicago's student newspaper where she oversaw a website overall that boosted traffic, the launch of a Spanish language version of the paper, revitalized the editorial board, started the Chronicle's awarding-winning explainer series and multiple newsletters. She earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia Chicago in May 2024, where she graduated summa cum laude.
She has earned awards from the Chicago Journalists Association, the Iowa Newspapers Association and the Illinois College Press Association. She is an active member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Journalism and Woman Symposium, the Society of Professional Journalists, Society of Environmental Journalists and the Online News Association.