Jake Conley

Jake Conley is a senior at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he majors in journalism and sociology and researches far-right extremism and radicalization. He’s from Woodbridge, Virginia.

Jake has worked at The Breeze, JMU’s student paper, for the past three years. In 2020, he founded the investigations desk and served as The Breeze’s first investigations editor. In 2021, he’s working as the editor-in-chief of The Breeze. 

At JMU, Jake’s consistently reported investigative watchdog pieces, including stories on accountability failures in JMU senior administration, sexual harassment by student organization leaders, public health malpractice by senior administration and discrimination by on-campus religious organizations. He’s also led The Breeze’s legal battle with JMU over the release of COVID-19 public health data for the past year.

Why I want to work with Public Herald:

I have a strong passion for investigative journalism and for holding power to account. Public Herald does just that — holding environmental leaders, entities and powers accountable for dangerous malpractice — and I want to be a part of a team of journalists doing that work of accountability journalism.