Jonathan Swan

Swan was born and raised in Australia.^[4] He is Jewish^[5][6][7] and the son of physician, journalist, and broadcaster Norman Swan.^[8] The younger Swan began his career at The Sydney Morning Herald and later moved to the United States and in 2014, where he held a yearlong fellowship with the American Political Science Association. He remained in the U.S. and resumed his career in journalism in 2015.^[9]

Swan joined The New York Times in 2023. He had previously covered the White House, Congress, and political campaigns for Axios had worked at publications in the U.S. and Australia, including The Hill and The Sydney Morning Herald.^[10]

In August 2020, Swan conducted an interview with President Trump for Axios on HBO.^[11] During the interview, Swan pointedly questioned and fact-checked numerous false, misleading, or bizarre statements as the President spoke them.^[12] The New York Times media columnist Ben Smith wrote that Swan's was "perhaps the best interview of Mr. Trump’s term."^[13]

In March and April 2019, HuffPost and Wired reported that Axios had paid a firm to improve its reputation by lobbying for changes to the Wikipedia articles on Axios and Swan.^[14][15]

As a member of the Sydney Morning Herald in the Canberra Press Gallery, Swan received the Wallace Brown Award in 2014 for most outstanding young journalist.^[16][17] In 2016, Politico named him one of "16 Breakout Media Stars."^[18] In 2020, The Jerusalem Post named Swan in its list of the world's 50 most influential Jews.^[19] In 2021, Axios was awarded an Emmy Award in the Best Edited Interview category for "President Donald J. Trump: An Interview" by Jonathan Swan, who accepted the award.^[20] The White House Correspondents' Association presented Swan the 2022 Aldo Beckman award for "overall excellence in White House coverage."^[21]

Swan married American reporter Betsy Woodruff of Politico on 14 September 2019. They have two children.^[22] Swan became an American citizen in July 2024.^[4][23]