Emyle Watkins
Multimedia ReporterEmyle Watkins is an award-winning multimedia investigative journalist with experience in newspapers, TV, and radio. Emyle is currently BTPM’s Disability Reporter and hosts the station's weekly Disabilities Beat segment. Their work has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, UpFirst and Morning Edition. Watkins has also appeared on the BBC World News and BBC 5Live during breaking news.
Outside of their work as a reporter, Emyle authored the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s Guide to Investigating Disability Issues and serves on Investigative Reporters and Editors' LGBTQ+ membership committee.
Emyle provides free and low-cost workshops to colleges, journalists, and organizations on improving coverage of people with disabilities and disability representation in newsrooms. Emyle's passion for disability reporting comes from their lived experience as a disabled and neurodivergent person who grew up with a stay-at-home disabled parent.
Buffalo-born and raised a short drive from the city, Emyle (pronounced like Emily, despite the spelling) got their bachelor's degrees in Multimedia Journalism and Digital Media Arts at Canisius University.
Emyle’s journalism career began at the early age of 16, when they became the primary sports reporter/photographer for their hometown newspaper, The Springville Journal. Since then, they have also freelanced or had work published in other newspapers, including The Buffalo News, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and The Public.
While Emyle started as a sports journalist, early on in college, they realized they wanted to pursue investigative journalism as a way to make a difference for communities and hold those in power accountable.
In college, Emyle quickly moved into an editorial position at The Canisius Griffin and served as the managing editor there, leading the investigative team, often looking into finances and covering student government/college administration. Emyle also redesigned the newspaper’s website and print product to be more accessible to readers with visual disabilities.
As part of Canisius’ Video Institute, Emyle co-produced and was the reporter for the documentary “NewBorn: Maternal Resources in New York State,” which won a Telly Award in 2020. While on a fellowship at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, they won a Pennsylvania Golden Quill by co-writing “There are Black people in the future,” a series of artist profiles.
Emyle interned at BTPM in 2020. Before joining BTPM, Emyle was an associate producer on the digital and investigative teams at WGRZ-TV (Channel 2). At WGRZ, Emyle helped develop stories on such topics as unsolved shootings in Buffalo and how over 900 graves were lost in a Cheektowaga cemetery.
Follow @EmyleWatkins.
Email Emyle at ewatkins@btpm.org
Desk (call only): 716-845-7000, ext 233
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New York’s Family Care program, which gives people with disabilities the choice to live with a family instead of in group homes, could expand if funding increases. -
'We have a responsibility to act': Zellner supports legislation limiting police, state work with ICESen. Jeremy Zellner backs the New York for All Act, a bill limiting local and state cooperation with ICE and restricting how agencies collect immigration status data.
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Legislation supported by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) would provide tariff rebate checks up to $1,200, plus $600 per child, to qualifying households amid rising costs. -
Buffalo’s Funny Bones comedy night brings disabled performers together to build community, challenge stigma, and connect through humor. -
The CCAP outlines how Erie County as a community can tackle climate change and helps the county obtain funding for community projects. -
A Buffalo exhibit showcases the stories of women institutionalized in the Buffalo State Asylum, meanwhile, families and advocates push for access to more records. -
Erie County GOP leaders are petitioning to put attorney Christopher McMaster on the 61st State Senate ticket after businessman Dan Gagliardo declined to run in November. -
Advocates say the death of a blind Rohingya refugee in Buffalo highlights failures to recognize disability and connect people to community resources. -
For two scientist parents in Buffalo, their daughter’s rare FOXG1 syndrome diagnosis led them to groundbreaking research, helping launch a gene therapy now headed to a clinical trial. -
Buffalo General seeks state approval to cut rehab unit beds in half, but local doctors, hospital staff and former patients warned at a public meeting the move would hurt patient care.
