Jana Cholakovska is an investigative reporter at NJ.com and NJ Advance Media, covering white-collar crime, criminal justice, immigration, labor, corruption, fraud, and public accountability. Her reporting has also examined environmental health, government oversight, and the way public institutions affect workers and communities.
Her professional record extends beyond her current newsroom. Cholakovska trained at Columbia Journalism School, worked with Columbia Journalism Investigations, and contributed to collaborative projects published by organizations including Public Health Watch, The Guardian, Grist, and The Washington Post. Several of these investigations have earned recognition from major journalism organizations.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Profession | Investigative journalist |
| Current role | Investigative reporter at NJ.com / NJ Advance Media |
| Origin | Skopje, North Macedonia |
| Journalism training | Columbia Journalism School M.S. Stabile program |
| Reporting areas | White-collar crime, labor, immigration, public accountability and environmental issues |
| Major fellowship | Columbia Journalism Investigations, 2023–24 |
| Livingston recognition | Finalist in 2024 and 2026 |
How Skopje and New York Shaped Her Journalism Path
Cholakovska is originally from Skopje, North Macedonia. In a Columbia Journalism School profile, she described the city as the place where she spent her most formative years before moving to New York for college.
That move eventually led her into graduate journalism training at Columbia. She completed the M.S. Stabile program and trained as a Toni Stabile Fellow for Investigative Journalism, developing skills in shoe-leather reporting, data journalism, and open-source investigation.
Her own 2023 graduation statement and several contemporaneous Columbia records support 2023 as her graduation year. One later Columbia alumni page lists her as One newer Columbia record identifies her with the “‘24 M.S. Stabile” designation, while earlier documentation points to a 2023 graduation.
Her graduate work was already focused on public-interest reporting. In 2023, her master’s project focused on the health dangers Arizona construction workers faced amid extreme heat and a booming real estate market. The project connected labor conditions, climate pressures, and public health, themes that later appeared again in her reporting.
The Columbia Training That Deepened Her Investigative Work
After graduate school, Cholakovska joined the 2023–24 Columbia Journalism Investigations cross-border data team.
She has said that the fellowship strengthened her ability to work with public records, lobbying disclosures, and sources inside local and federal agencies. It also gave her more experience with traditional shoe-leather reporting alongside data-driven investigative methods.
During this period, she worked on investigations involving environmental regulation and corporate accountability. Her Columbia experience was not limited to reporting individual stories. She was also involved with Commons, a Brown Institute for Media Innovation project designed to make it easier to examine how federal agencies respond to public comments on proposed regulations.
The project brought together journalism and data tools to address a specific accountability question: whether public participation in the regulatory process leads to meaningful responses from government agencies.
Alongside her reporting, she participated in a project exploring tools for examining how federal agencies respond to public comments on regulations.
How Environmental and Labor Investigations Expanded Her Public Work
One of Cholakovska’s Columbia Journalism Investigations projects was Chemical Windfall.
The collaborative investigation examined companies linked to PFAS pollution and government support tied to the electric-vehicle battery supply chain. Cholakovska said she spearheaded the reporting conducted in New Jersey.
Her work there involved local reporting as part of a much larger cross-border project. In discussing the investigation, she described interviewing a family living near a chemical facility and said she considered the opportunity to tell their story a privilege.
Columbia Journalism Investigations reported that the project was followed by calls from U.S. lawmakers for stronger action on PFAS used in lithium-ion batteries.
Cholakovska also contributed to Toxic Texas Air, a Public Health Watch investigation into benzene emissions and regulatory oversight in Channelview, Texas. The project examined years of pollution concerns and the response of agencies responsible for protecting residents and workers.
The project earned multiple national journalism honors and finalist distinctions for Cholakovska and her reporting team. It also reinforced recurring themes in her work: environmental health, industrial activity, worker safety and the performance of regulatory institutions.
She was later among the journalists credited on Public Health Watch’s Fumed, another environmental-health project. These investigations repeatedly addressed industrial activity, regulation, worker safety and public health.
What Her Journalism Awards Actually Recognize
Cholakovska’s awards record is closely tied to collaborative investigative journalism, and the distinction between individual and team recognition matters.
In 2024, she and her colleagues on Toxic Texas Air were named finalists for the Livingston Award in Local Reporting. The same project received the National Press Foundation’s 2023 Thomas L. Stokes Award recognizing excellence in energy and environmental reporting.
The Toxic Texas Air investigation earned the runner-up position in the 2024 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability. The reporting team, which included Cholakovska, received the recognition.
The project additionally won a 2024 national Edward R. Murrow Award for Continuing Coverage among small digital organizations.
Fumed added another team distinction in 2025, earning Bronze in the Barlett & Steele Awards’ Regional/Local Publications category.
Cholakovska then received another major individual finalist recognition after joining NJ Advance Media. Her investigation Playing With Fire was selected as a finalist for the 2026 Livingston Award in Local Reporting.
That made her a two-time Livingston finalist: first as part of the Toxic Texas Air team in 2024 and later for her NJ Advance Media work in 2026.
What Her NJ.com Investigations Show About Her Current Focus
At NJ Advance Media, Cholakovska’s work has broadened beyond environmental health while remaining centered on institutional accountability.
Playing With Fire, published in November 2025, examined aging fire trucks, rising equipment costs, and long replacement timelines affecting New Jersey fire departments. That reporting later secured her a place among the 2026 Livingston Award finalists.
Her reporting in 2026 moved across several other public-interest subjects.
On August 12, she published an investigation into New Jersey’s commercial laundry industry. Cholakovska said the investigation spanned nearly a year, focusing on workplace injuries, safety oversight, and dangers affecting workers, including immigrants.
In July 2026, she reported on New Jersey’s network of automated license-plate-reader cameras. She described using public-records requests and reviewing search logs to investigate how those systems collected, stored, and shared information.
Her June 2026 reporting also examined the transfer of ICE detainees from New Jersey. That work extended her current portfolio into immigration enforcement and the systems used to move detainees between locations.
These investigations differ in subject matter, but they rely on many of the same reporting tools she developed earlier: documents, government records, source-building and examination of systems that are often difficult for ordinary members of the public to scrutinize.
Her current NJ.com work therefore spans public safety, labor, immigration, surveillance, government accountability and white-collar or institutional wrongdoing rather than being confined to a single specialist beat.
What Cholakovska Has Said About the Purpose of Her Work
Cholakovska has spoken directly about why accountability journalism matters to her.
When announcing her NJ Advance Media role, she said she saw local journalism as a way to hold powerful institutions accountable and help rebuild public trust. She described her planned reporting as covering areas including corruption, fraud, cybercrime and white-collar crime across New Jersey.
Her comments about Columbia Journalism Investigations also reveal the professional habits behind that approach. She has emphasized digging into public records, understanding lobbying disclosures and developing sources inside government agencies rather than relying only on public statements.
She has also connected investigative reporting with responsibility toward the people affected by the subjects she covers. While discussing her environmental reporting in New Jersey, she spoke about the privilege of being trusted to tell the story of a family living near an industrial facility.
After her Columbia fellowship, Cholakovska said she wanted to continue producing hard-hitting, consequential investigative journalism. Her later work at NJ Advance Media has continued along that path, moving from environmental and labor investigations into public safety, surveillance, immigration, and other questions about institutional power.
Her public record is best understood through the reporting itself: a progression from graduate investigative training to collaborative national projects, then to sustained local accountability journalism in New Jersey.