Lauren McGaughy is the main investigative reporter and editor for The Texas Newsroom, a statewide collaboration of NPR member stations. She is based at KUT News, Austin’s NPR station.

Her focus areas include criminal justice, LGBTQ rights and government ethics with an eye toward accountability, storytelling and the use of public records. For the past dozen years, she has covered capital politics and policy across two states. Lauren spent 15 years at newspapers before joining public radio.

READ: Three Questions with Lauren McGaughy [August 2024]

While at The Dallas Morning News, she and Dave Boucher won a Headliners Foundation Silver Award for Enterprise and Innovation for their series on how Texas police use hypnosis to investigate crimes.

She previously covered Texas politics and policy for The Houston Chronicle as well as the Louisiana Legislature for The Times-Picayune. She got her start in journalism covering the U.S. Department of State for the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun. 

The Association of LGBTQ Journalists (NLGJA) has twice honored Lauren’a political and legal coverage, and in 2024, she was awarded the Randy Shilts Award for LGBTQ+ Coverage. This honors journalists who consistently bring stories of the LGBTQ+ community to life in mainstream media outlets. Past recipients included Diane Rehm and Jonathan Capehart. 

She has twice been nominated for a GLAAD award for her stories about transgender Texans.

Lauren shared a 2013 IRE Award, Peabody Award and Regional Edward R. Murrow Award with staff from The New Orleans Times-Picayune and Fox 8 for “Louisiana Purchased,” a multi-part series on Louisiana’s campaign contribution system. 

A Los Angeles native, Lauren attended Georgetown University, where she graduated cum laude with a degree in East Asian and Islamic Studies. She received her M.A. in Chinese Studies at UCLA in 2008. She’s lived in Washington, DC, Beijing, China, London, England, Baton Rouge, Louisiana and, now, Austin Texas.

Lauren is the proud co-founder of the Texas Ledes, a group for past, current and aspiring women journalists in the Lone Star State. The Ledes has more than 400 members statewide, and has hosted events on job searching, book writing and sexual harassment on the job.

In her free time, McGaughy documents historic cemeteries and churches. She also loves comic books, cats, cooking and costuming. Ask her about her wig collection!