Hannah E. Clearwater discovered her calling during a summer internship at a tiny Hill Country weekly, where she spent three months knocking on doors in Fredericksburg and learning that the best stories rarely come from press releases. That was 2013, and she hasn’t stopped knocking since.
What She Covers
Now covering housing and development for News of Austin, Hannah tracks the forces reshaping neighborhoods across the city—from the teardown boom in Bouldin Creek to the ongoing battles over density near transit corridors. Her 2022 investigation into code enforcement disparities between East and West Austin prompted a city audit and policy changes still being implemented today. The following year, the Texas Press Association honored her series on eviction court practices during the pandemic.
Background
Before joining News of Austin in 2020, Hannah spent five years at the Austin American-Statesman covering Travis County government and two years at the San Marcos Daily Record, where she learned to cover everything from crime to high school football to water rights disputes. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where she edited the Daily Texan’s metro desk and developed what she describes as an “unhealthy obsession” with public records requests.Hannah grew up in Pflugerville before the population tripled, which gives her a particular perspective on Austin’s growth—both its possibilities and its costs. She believes local journalism matters because city hall decisions shape daily life more directly than most people realize, from property taxes to whether that empty lot becomes affordable housing or another luxury tower.When she’s not reviewing permit applications or sitting through planning commission meetings that inevitably run past 11 p.m., Hannah can usually be found biking the trails around Lady Bird Lake.
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