Since joining the Climate and Environment team in 2022, Paulina has made a particular effort to work with editors across the newsroom during extreme weather events. She has helped steer live coverage of natural disasters ranging from Hurricane Ian, which devastated parts of Florida, to the wildfires that devastated Maui last summer. She works closely with global weather editor Jason Samenow to help guide and edit daily and corporate weather coverage, as well as covering mysterious and surprising revelations on Earth and beyond. He also edited Kasha Patel’s weekly Hidden Planet column.
Prior to joining Climate, Paulina was a reporter on the General Assignment Team, covering numerous wildfires in the West, mass shootings in Michigan and Colorado, and a devastating apartment collapse in Surfside, Florida. He regularly covered disasters and mass casualty incidents. She wrote about the growing mental health crisis among teens, the brutality of the pandemic’s mental and physical toll on nurses, and the rare and very (very) big fish.
She joined The Washington Post in 2017 and was the first researcher on some of the 202 newsletters launched that year: Health 202, Finance 202, Energy 202.
Raised in Los Angeles, Paulina graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She spent much of her time with the student newspaper, serving as its editor during her junior year.
Announcement from Climate and Environment Editor-in-Chief Zachary Goldfarb, Climate and Environment Deputy Editor Juliet Eilperin, and Climate and Environmental Policy Editor Stuart Leavenworth:
I am delighted to announce that Maxine Joselou has taken on a new role, joining the Department for Climate and Environment as Climate Policy and Politics Correspondent. In this role, she covers the most powerful players influencing climate and the environment in the United States and around the world, and how those decisions affect us all.
Maxine came to the Post in September 2021 as the founding author of the Climate 202 newsletter. She helped her grow the number of newsletter subscribers to over 100,000 by the time the newsletter ceased publication in December.
In addition to the newsletter, Maxine has written several revelatory articles over the past year. She recently investigated the turmoil over racial equity at the Sierra Club, the nation’s oldest environmental organization. She also wrote a memorable piece about a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who began rejecting the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. She revealed how Maryland’s governor appointed a gas lobbyist to the commission that regulates the gas industry, and the next day had the governor rescind her appointment. She then profiled the Consumer Product Safety Commission member whose rude comments about gas stoves sparked a culture war. She has also played a key role in the United Nations climate change talks in Glasgow and Dubai over the past few years.
Maxine lives on Capitol Hill with her fiancé, Ben, and their cat, Ollie. In her free time, she enjoys baking cookies and texting Ollie on her Instagram account.
Maxine started her new role on January 2nd. Please join us in celebrating her.