Benjamin is a multi-media journalist with experience in rural Colorado and New York City.

Benjamin found his interest for journalism while working for All Hands Volunteers, a U.S.-based disaster relief non-profit, in Nepal, after the country’s 2015 earthquake devastated the small country — destroying urban and rural infrastructure such as schools, farmland, and homes. He found himself working to rebuild houses, clearing rubble, and building safe sanitation facilities while interacting with, and learning about, the local people and their culture. He ran a travel blog, americanwanderlust.org, which talked about this experience.

He currently reports on rural issues for The Chronicle-News in Trinidad, Colorado, including politics, crime, water, wildland fires and restoration, public health, among other topics, for Las Animas County, Colorado, and Colfax County, New Mexico.

Benjamin attended Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO pursuing a degree in Journalism and Multi-Media studies, while also pursuing a concentration in Political Science, before graduating in Spring 2020. He spent time reporting for The Durango Herald as a general assignment reporter intern, and attended the 2019 European Journalism Institute – learning about religion and conflict reporting, business reporting, photojournalism, and feature writing – while networking with journalists from around the globe. Before that, he worked as a reporter and managing editor of his school paper The Independent.

He also spent time reporting for the Queens Courier in Queens, New York, where he covered crime, community events, policy, real estate, economy, business, and the early-days of the COVID-19 pandemic, while finishing up his studies at McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute’s New York City Semester in Journalism at The King’s College in Manhattan, New York.