Alex Hannaford

Writer

U.S.

Alex Hannaford

Writer

U.S.

What I Found In Moore, Oklahoma
When Alex Hannaford found a couple in Moore willing to talk about how they had survived the deadly tornado, a police officer intervened.
The DART Center
Does it matter how a condemned man dies?
The drug used to kill inmates on death row - sodium thiopental - has run out. The story of what replaced it is as alarming as it is horrific. GQ goes to Texas and Oklahoma in search of some answers, a trail that leads all the way to the gurney
GQ magazine (UK)
‘Refugees Are Victims of the Very Thing You Are Afraid Of’
Despite an uncertain welcome in Texas, these Syrian families are trying to rebuild their lives after fleeing civil unrest and violence half a world away. The tapestry that hangs on the wall above the sofa in Iyad and Lina Al Afandi’s modest home just north of Dallas is the only physical reminder of the country they’ve left behind: a stitching that depicts a traditional Syrian house with tiled courtyard and fountain, and rugs draped from the balcony.
Texas Observer
Love and rockets
How Kim Barker's warts-and-all account of covering the war in Afghanistan inspired Tina Fey's new comedy Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
The Telegraph
Worth A Shot
As vaccination rates drop, once-rare diseases like whooping cough and measles come roaring back.
Texas Observer
Greenpeace turns 40: Idealism, in-fighting and drama on the high seas
The 'Phyllis cormack', an old fishing trawler that has seen better days, slows as it approaches an object somewhere in the lonely Pacific, a few hundred miles off the coast of California. On board, the crew realise they've come across a baby sperm whale, blood staining the sea around its lifeless body.
The Independent
Should students be allowed to carry guns at university? Special report into Texas's new, most controversial law
As gun violence continues to plague the US, a new law allowing students in Texas to carry concealed firearms on campus has divided students and staff – and sparked debate on whether attempting to protect yourself could put innocent people at risk. The scenario is terrifying, but unfortunately all too easy to imagine: calls begin to come in to the police about a ‘shooter on campus’, but the reports are somewhat vague and contradictory.
The Telegraph
Bars and Stripes
The number of migrants making the perilous, illegal journey from Central America to the US is soaring. Alex Hannaford reports from the border (Pictures: Jez Coulson)
The Sunday Times magazine
'This psychopath doesn't deserve a Hollywood ending'
Does James Franco's film True Story give a man who murdered his own wife and children the attention he desperately craves? His victims' family think so. One winter night in 2001, Penny Baker-Dupuie sat on the sofa in the living room of her Michigan home. Her two children, a newborn and a three-year-old, were asleep in their beds upstairs, and Penny watched in silence as her husband, John, sitting opposite, showed her how to load, empty, then re-load their shotgun; slowly, meticulously.
The Telegraph
The journalist killed by his own story
In 1996, journalist Gary Webb began looking into links between Nicaragua's drug-running Contra rebels and the CIA. As a recent film shows, what he found killed him. Gary Webb knew his story would cause a stir. The newspaper report he'd written suggested that a US-backed rebel army in Latin America was supplying the drugs responsible for blighting some of Los Angeles's poorest neighbourhoods – and, crucially, that the CIA must have known about it.
The Telegraph
Nordheim inherits the waste, and few of the profits, from the South Texas oil boom.
The fracking boom has transformed vast parts of Texas, pumping money into local economies while raising fears about groundwater and air pollution. The boom has caused increased crime and truck traffic, and has likely spawned earthquakes. But the oil and gas bonanza has also brought more subtle, but no less significant, social changes.
Texas Observer
The evil preacher who runs his cult from prison
Paedophile Warren Jeffs is serving a life sentence in jail. As a new television drama tells his story, Alex Hannaford asks: why is he still so powerful?
The Telegraph
Open Carry America
The shootings at Sandy Hook school claimed the lives of 20 children and shocked the world. So why do a growing number of Americans want gun controls relaxed? Alex Hannaford meets the fiery ‘Open Carry’ activists
The Telegraph
Guard union calls for end to solitary on death row
Texas’ largest prison guard union is calling for a partial end to the controversial use of solitary confinement on death row. In a letter to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) obtained by the Observer , the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3807 advocates for TDCJ to house death-row prisoners who pose the lowest security risk in cells with other inmates.
Texas Observer
Life in the Dead Zone
Lorraine lets out a throaty growl before she gracefully maneuvers past docked boats in an otherwise silent estuary, toward the open ocean. Mauricio Blanco, a good-looking, 40-something father of four and the C. Lorraine’s captain, has been up since 4 a.m. This is his second time on the water today.
Texas Observer
The story of a gun
What's it like to walk into a bank with a gun? After Sandy Hook, GQ's Alex Hannaford goes inside America's gun laws
GQ (UK)

About

Alex Hannaford

Alex was born in London in 1974 and spent his early childhood in Nigeria. He cut his teeth in journalism on the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and the Lymington Times in England. He worked as a feature writer and commissioning editor on the London Evening Standard before going freelance in 2003.

Alex has taught journalism at Kingston University in the UK and has written about the death penalty, crime, harsh sentencing, religion, culture and human rights issues for British GQ, The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph magazines, the Guardian, Esquire, The Atlantic, The Nation, the Texas Observer, and Texas Monthly.

He wrote and directed The Last 40 Miles, an award-winning animated short film about the death penalty.

He hosted Dead Man Talking, a crime podcast for Audioboom, which won silver at the 2019 British Podcast Awards and reached #1 in the UK iTunes podcast charts.

He won the 2015 Media Award from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and is a Fellow of The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma at Columbia University.

A dual British-U.S. citizen, Alex is based in New York's Hudson Valley. His latest podcast is "The Innocents," about wrongful conviction. He is a senior editor at Stranger's Guide magazine and is currently working on a book about Austin, Texas, to be published by Dey Street / Harper Collins in 2024.

Literary agent: Howard Yoon @ Ross Yoon
TV / film: Nate Miller @ Management