When she was seven years old, Megan went to school on professional day dressed as reporter… and the person she was interviewing. With her dad’s trench coat hanging off one shoulder, she announced to her second-grade class that she was going to be a news reporter (half the costume) and then spun around to reveal the other half of the costume, pretending to be the interesting person she’d get to interview. It turns out, Megan got to see that awkwardly dressed dream become a reality, though she’d have to wait a few years to follow in her father’s footsteps as a journalist.
In her two decades of reporting, Megan has worked as a local and national reporter in both television and radio. Among her more memorable stories, Megan covered the 6-week trial of a killer that she and a colleague then turned into a 12-episode podcast called ’22 Hours: An American Nightmare.’ The podcast earned a regional Edward R. Murrow award and won Apple’s Best New Podcasts in 2021 after it rose to No. 2 on the charts that summer.
Megan also worked to uncover multiple failures at DC’s crime lab before the department lost its national accreditation. Hers and a colleague’s investigation into the lack of oversight and alleged criminal negligence at the crime lab led DC’s mayor to call for a re-examination of thousands of previous cases in which the outcome hinged on evidence that could have been compromised by faulty lab work. The ongoing investigation won a Watchdog Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and multiple regional awards. Megan also was awarded the region’s AP Reporter of the Year five times and earned a Gracie Award for her reporting on the disturbing trend of little boys dying at the hands of their mothers’ boyfriends. The story exposed how the rising cost of childcare often leaves lower income parents with a choice between keeping their jobs or leaving their children in dangerous circumstances.
Megan is from the DC area, went to undergrad at the University of Missouri and earned her master’s degree at American University. She has worked in southern Oregon, Kansas City and Washington, DC before joining the News5 Investigates team at KOAA. In her free time, Megan loves to garden, catch up with her big Irish family and explore southern Colorado with her husband.
You can reach her at megan.cloherty@koaa.com
On Twitter at @ClohertyNews5
And through the News 5 Investigates team contact page
