HI, I’M TESSA
Tessa Duvall has been an investigative reporter at The Courier Journal in Louisville, Ky., since March 2019. She has been a lead reporter on the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor, where she has played a role in breaking major stories, like that police obtained a no-knock warrant for Taylor's apartment and that Taylor was not treated by a medic for nearly a half-hour after the shooting. She has also covered the coronavirus pandemic, homelessness, children's issues and contributed to coverage of former Gov. Matt Bevin's controversial pardons.
Prior to her role in Louisville, Ms. Duvall worked for more than four years at The Florida-Times-Union in Jacksonville, Fla., as an enterprise reporter specializing in juvenile justice issues. At the end of 2018, The Times-Union published her series “When Kids Kill,” a 20-month investigation examining the factors contributing to Jacksonville juveniles being convicted for murder and manslaughter at the highest rate in the state. The project was completed as a part of the 2017 University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism’s National Fellowship. The series went on to win the runner-up prize from The Florida Bar in the Parker Thomson Awards for Outstanding Legal Journalism in Florida, and led to Ms. Duvall serving at the keynote speaker for two Broward County Crime Commission conferences in 2019.
While at the Times-Union, she won numerous journalism awards for her work, including top prizes in criminal justice reporting from both the Sunshine State Awards and Florida Press Club Awards in 2017. She also earned multiple journalism fellowships with John Jay College's Center on Media, Crime and Justice.
In 2015, Ms. Duvall delivered a TEDxJacksonville talk on her extensive reporting of a troubled middle school's transformation into two single-gender academies and how the effort revitalized the school -- and its reputation.
Before working in Jacksonville, she was an education reporter and magazine contributor at the Midland Reporter-Telegram in Midland, Texas.
Born and raised in Bowling Green, Ky., Ms. Duvall graduated from Western Kentucky University where she was editor-in-chief of the award-winning College Heights Herald newspaper. She earned bachelor's degrees in journalism and sociology. During her time at WKU, Ms. Duvall had internships at The Arizona Republic, The Commercial Appeal, The Bowling Green Daily News and the Eagle Post.
