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@WBFO.org
Desk (call only): 716-845-7000, ext 233
-
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul is expected to announce the 2026 State Budget Monday evening from the Red Room at the State Capitol. You can watch live here on our website. -
This week on the Disabilities Beat, BTPM NPR's Emyle Watkins talks with Western New York Independent Living's Douglas Usiak about concerns over the Erie County Sheriff's "Handle With Care" Registry. -
Pope Francis was the first Jesuit pope — a connection that has been felt deeply in Western New York's Jesuit institutions since the news of his passing. -
Leaders in the local disability community say they oppose a new initiative from the Erie County Sheriff’s Office to create a registry of disabled people for use in emergencies.
-
Last week, parties to a federal lawsuit against New York State's Department of Health filed and a judge approved a preliminary injunction which will create new protections for consumers and their personal assistants who are transitioning to a new company running the state's home care program. -
Some disabled people who use New York State’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP, will now be able to stick with the previous company who handled their workers' pay, for a brief time. -
Earlier this week, GoBike Buffalo's Community Bicycle Shop on Colvin Avenue was robbed with over $8,000 worth of resources stolen. The organization is now asking the community to help them recover after losing roughly 18-20 newly-repaired bicycles that were set to be donated, all of their power tools, and an assortment of replacement parts. -
If the preliminary injunction is approved by the judge, some consumers and their personal assistants will be able to stick with their original fiscal intermediary – but not indefinitely. -
Big news is expected today in a federal lawsuit challenging New York's transition to a single company running its Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP. -
The federal court ruling halted plans to end the state's work with over 600 companies that currently administer New York’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP.
