New York Times : Orlando Mayorquin Joins Express

I have some great news. Orlando Mayorquin has done such an excellent job in the past year as a reporting fellow on Express that we have hired him to stay on as a reporter. While his permanent assignment remains to be determined, he will remain on the team for the time being.

Orlando was born and raised in Southern California's Inland Empire and graduated from California State, Northridge, in Los Angeles with a journalism degree. He wrote and edited for the student paper there, covering early impacts of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests by students. He had an internship at the nonprofit CalMatters in 2020, reporting on poor and working class residents, and in 2021, he worked at The Los Angeles Times writing obituaries of Covid-19 victims. USA Today hired him in 2022 after an internship, and he honed his breaking news skills there, reporting from the ground in Uvalde, Texas, after the school shooting there, among other major stories. He joined Express as a reporting fellow last June.

We all know his great work for us. "I tasted a weeks-old perpetual stew at a playground in Bushwick in the name of reporting," he says. "I wrote harrowing tales of survival from victims of the Lahaina fire. I wrote a premature obituary for an aging spacecraft. I covered the plight of food delivery workers in N.Y.C., the mass shooting in Maine and the late night Saturday death of Matthew Perry (having never watched a single episode of 'Friends')."

We're excited he's sticking around. Please give Orlando a hearty congratulations.

- Patrick

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