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About Me

Hi! I am Joshua Hong, a data journalist based in New York. I am currently working as an Editorial News + Data Fellow at Fortune.

I received my B.A. in Political Science with a Minor in Journalism & Mass Communications from The George Washington University in 2025.

I am a proud member of the Asian American Journalists Association and Investigative Reporters & Editors.

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Featured Articles

Explore a featured selection of my writing work below.
Fortune •

How the Democratic party flipped the House and Senate, in 12 charts | Fortune

The 2026 midterm race results saw a blue wave that secured a Democrat majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives. They flipped Senate seats in states the party hadn’t won in decades and took back a House that Republicans had controlled since 2023.But what led to the turnaround that had voters turn out?


The Democratic party needed a net gain of four seats to win back the Senate, and many in the party had seen 2026 as a testing ground. “What we’re seeing in the early parts of 2026...
Fortune •

Billionaire Sergey Brin is building political infrastructure that will last beyond his $102 million fight against Prop 40 | Fortune

Google cofounder Sergey Brin spent much of his career on the sidelines of electoral politics.But a proposed California wealth tax has turned the billionaire into one of the state’s most powerful political financiers, prompting him to build an organization that can continue shaping state policy long after voters decide on the measure that initially mobilized him.


Brin has contributed $102 million to Building a Better California, a political organization that has become the central vehicle for...
Fortune •

Trump slammed Biden-Harris for the ‘war on energy’ during his 2024 campaign. Now he’s rolling back Biden-era regulations as gas sits above $4 a gallon | Fortune

During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump accused Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of waging a “war on energy” and promised at the Economic Club of New York to get “gasoline below $2 a gallon.” This week, with gas above $4 a gallon, his EPA proposed loosening Biden-era methane rules for oil and gas producers.The proposal—according to Trump—is a win for oil and gas producers, especially small operators. Whether it moves the price at the pump, before next week’s midterms or for years after, is another que...
Fortune •

Mark Cuban says owning the Mavericks went from 'being about basketball' to 'about valuations' and created 'more stress'—it still made him $4.3 billion | Fortune

Mark Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks because he thought it would be fun. By the time he sold, he says, it had stopped being about basketball.“It went from being about basketball to being about valuations,” Cuban said in an interview on The Diary of a CEO on Monday. He added that the shift “just created more stress.”


But the valuations worked out for him. Cuban bought the team for about $285 million in 2000 and sold his stake in the team for $3.5 billion in 2024, according to ESPN senior NBA...
Fortune •

Google told to halt work on Finnish data centers after clearing an estimated 250,000 trees before environmental review was done | Fortune

Google has spent more than a decade pointing to Finland as proof that a data center can be a good neighbor. Now Finland’s regulators say it moved too fast on the next ones.The Finnish Licensing and Supervision Authority issued a notice that requires Google subsidiary Tuike Finland to suspend all environmentally significant preparatory work at sites in Muhos and Kajaani, until required environmental impact assessments are finished. The move follows the clearing of an estimated 250,000 trees at Mu...
Fortune •

Amazon abandons $427 million GW campus data center plan and pledges land donations worth $65 million instead | Fortune

Amazon is reversing its plan to expand its data center footprint in Virginia—forgoing its $427 million plan to build data centers on George Washington University’s Virginia campus it had signed an application for in February. The company will donate roughly 25 acres of the property to Loudoun County for community facilities instead.The agreement, dubbed “Project Potomac Promise” by Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall, calls for Amazon to withdraw its data center site plan,...
Fortune •

Lakers, Clippers, Man City: why do so many sports owners have money on both sides of a situation? | Fortune

It takes a fortune far bigger than any sports team to buy one—and that fortune rarely sits still. It’s invested in startups, private holding companies and insurers. This year, three of the richest owners in sports have come under scrutiny for deals in which they had money on both sides.Steve Ballmer had invested in Aspiration, the financial services company that signed his star player, Kawhi Leonard, to an endorsement deal. Manchester City’s owner, through his investment vehicle, covered some of...
Fortune •

Trump keeps changing who gets his $5,000 dividend, and only 21% of voters believe he'll actually pay it | Fortune

Politicians all over the world have been grappling with how to deal with low voter turnout, as it keeps falling in recent decades even as the number of countries holding elections (and the voters voting in them) has grown, according to International IDEA. Some jurisdictions have implemented paid holidays from work while political campaigns increasingly offer rides to the polls. Then the president of the United States recently began toying with another, arguably more enticing initiative: offering...
Fortune •

Meet the two cofounders who went on a 10-month trip before starting their $350 million business. They say you should, too | Fortune

Nate Wilson and Eli Ben-Joseph generated more than $150 million in earned revenue for its health system customers from their AI health care company Regard following their 2024 Series B valuation of $350 million.  But before Wilson and Ben-Joseph built a company worth millions, they spent months traveling together through China, the Philippines, and Colombia. They got stranded, lost control of plans, and figured out how to navigate unfamiliar places with each other.


They say they didn’t set ou...
Fortune •

Taxpayers are still paying $1.6 million a week to keep 420 radio staffers out of work | Fortune

It’s been more than a year since the Trump administration dismantled Voice of America, the largest U.S. international broadcaster, saying “taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.” Yet the agency is costing the government millions even as it stopped operations.Voice of America, one of six entities that fall under the purview of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), is a digital, web, and mobile media outlet that broadcasts news to over 361 million people globally...
Fortune •

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has emerged as the biggest foil to AI doomerism about the existential risk to humanity | Fortune

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly rejected warnings about AI’s existential threat to humanity, mounting a robust defense for going full speed ahead. In an interview with CBS News two weeks ago, he said “2030 is not going to be the end of the world. There is 0% chance that’s going to be the end of the world.”


He said other AI leaders like Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic were “irresponsible” for the “doomsday narratives” they have pushed in recent reports.“I believe the...
Fortune •

‘It’s so corrosive to democracy': Over 50 federal prosecutors speak out against Trump's $100,000 a month 'insider trading' scheme | Fortune

Trump’s plan to sell earlier access to his Truth Social posts for six-figures has hit a new wrinkle. More than 50 former federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials are asking a federal judge to block Donald Trump’s $100,000 monthly service for early access to Truth Social posts, arguing that the arrangement could implicate several federal criminal statutes—including giving traders a paid window into potentially market-moving government information.The 53 former prosecutors and law enforce...
Fortune •

Meta plans to spend $145 billion this year, more than every military budget except the U.S., China and Russia | Fortune

The AI boom is less a marathon of innovation and more a spending sprint as companies pour billions to maintain their spot in the AI race. Now, Meta is spending on a scale that puts the company above most countries’ military budgets.Meta plans to spend up to $145 billion in capital expenditure in 2026, a roughly 101% jump from the $72.2 billion it spent just one year earlier.  The company says the expenditures will fund its core business, with the higher component prices and additional data cente...
Fortune •

Even in the era of NIL, college sports are stacked against student athletes—now lack of transparency is holding them back from a ‘fair market' | Fortune

College sports are booming—and college athletes are earning like the pros. Five years after the NCAA opened the door to name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation, college athletes can earn money from their schools, donors, collectives, brands and their own audiences. But the NIL revolution isn’t fixing the one thing it was designed to: lack of fair payment for student-athletes. The stakes of the NIL era trace back to O’Bannon v. NCAA, the landmark case that challenged the premise that student-...
Fortune •

Data centers are swapping water for forever chemicals to keep AI cool | Fortune

The midterms are six weeks away and Republicans are walking a fine line between meeting constituents in opposition to data center growth and agreeing with the president who continues to advocate for them. Now there seems to be another wrinkle to the ongoing data center backlash: the release of “forever chemicals” into the air. A new report from chemical watchdog ChemSec found that most of the world’s biggest PFAS producers are expanding their capacity thanks to AI infrastructure. PFAS, also know...
Fortune •

Shrinkflation is coming for pro sports: The cost of watching the NFL jumped 28.6%—and attending a game 72%—since 2015 | Fortune

America’s most popular sport is back—and the NFL just set a new record in its opening week: it was the highest-scoring Sunday in week one ever. But the average viewer would have to jump through hoops to have seen all those touchdowns—it takes subscription after subscription to catch kickoff.The NFL is running into a shrinkflation problem—the league is downsizing the amount of games available in individual packages even as costs climb for fans. And attending a game in-person hasn’t gotten any che...
Fortune •

‘Combine your passion with an investment strategy’: Meet the venture capital using 500,000 Pokémon and trading cards as a hedge against a debt crisis | Fortune

The U.S. national debt is more than $40 trillion, and it’s only growing from here. Wage growth keeps stalling; job growth is staying stagnant; and grocery prices are trending up. With the 10-year Treasury yield nearing 5% as heavy government borrowing puts pressure on the bond market, some investors are looking for safer places to store their hard-earned cash.Investing in alternative assets isn’t new: In recent years, there have been many different (let’s say creative) investment opportunities,...
Fortune •

It's not just food: The plastic packaging your food comes in may carry cancer-linked chemicals, and most go untested | Fortune

It looks like the American consumer has more to worry about than food recalls and cyclospora—a new study found that even the packaging the food comes in may pose some health concerns.Out of over 15,000 food contact chemicals (FCCs), 1,222 or 8% can pose serious health risks, according to a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology. Some of these FCCs, which in general are “substances that come into contact with food, such as through food packaging, pr...
Fortune •

Men are larp-ing as NFL players to score dates and cash—one made $1.3 million before the FBI arrested him | Fortune

All roads lead to larp—but contrary to older generations, that’s nothing new. That is, the idea behind it. From phrases like “fake it til you make it,” and real-life con artists like Anna “Delvey” Sorokin, larp-ing has been a facet of human society throughout history. Even Hollywood got in on it in the early 2000s, with Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance of Frank Abagnale Jr. in “Catch me if you can,”—portraying a picture-perfect snapshot of the larp-ing sensation. But in the age of social media an...
Fortune •

‘Feeding the beast’: Meta faces allegations of using its ‘perv glasses’ to train AI in new lawsuit | Fortune

Not long after Meta agreed to fork up up to $18 billion over the next decade for its child-safety settlement, the tech giant faces yet another privacy lawsuit, this one over its AI-powered Meta Glasses. A new lawsuit alleges the company turned footage captured through the smart glasses into training data for its AI systems without adequately disclosing how the data from those recordings were handled.The complaint stems from a lawsuit originally filed in federal court in California in March, alle...
Fortune •

Clippers fined $30 million as owner Steve Ballmer is suspended for a year following NBA investigation on behind-the-curtain deal | Fortune

The NBA announced on Wednesday that the league would impose sweeping punishments on the LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard following its investigation into allegations of third-party off-the-court income opportunities given to Leonard. The league found the NBA star and the team had violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement—and “a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations.”The investigation was initially conducted from Leonard’s reported $28 million endorsement deal given by A...
Fortune •

College sports and 'amateurism' become the new 'professional' as an NFL player fights to return to school | Fortune

Dae’Quan Wright, the former Cleveland Browns tight end, may soon make history. The former NFL player’s stint in pro football is coming to an end after being waived, but that may not be the last time he dons a football uniform, as he’s likely to return to college sports at LSU this year. Wright, a former Ole Miss tight end who went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft, signed with the Philadelphia Eagles before joining the Cleveland Browns. After receiving a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit ch...
Fortune •

SpaceX says it’s building its largest spaceport yet, committing $100 billion for a Louisiana site—adding to its list of billion-dollar expansion plans | Fortune

Rather apparent in SpaceX’s IPO filings is the ever-constant named goal of reaching Mars to build compute infrastructure and even human settlements on the red planet. In Elon Musk’s first earnings call, he reiterated those goals, the very ones that led him to create the company over two decades ago. Now he’s expanding his lofty space travel aspirations with a new real-estate and infrastructure investment. SpaceX is committing $100 billion to build a massive new spaceport in coastal Louisiana, gi...
Fortune •

Meta's $17.1 billion settlement will be over 12-times larger than the second largest big tech privacy settlement in the past four years | Fortune

Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion over the next decade to settle a landmark child-safety lawsuit brought about by 29 state attorneys general, co-led by California’s Rob Bonta. The suit alleged Meta designed Instagram with intentionally addictive features and exposed younger users to serious mental harms while misleading the public about the platform’s safety. In addition to the payout, the social media company will make sweeping changes to its platform, including a default two-hour daily ti...
Fortune •

Trump admits tariffs are a tax on America's love for hamburgers and allows 300,000 metric tons of ground beef imports at 'below current market prices' | Fortune

Donald Trump is temporarily opening the U.S. market to additional beef imports over the next three months and will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product to enter the country without being subject to out-of-quota tariffs. “This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday.


“We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.” The president’s pos...
Fortune •

‘The great quantum migration’ is coming as more than $2 trillion in digital assets is at risk—nearly the entire value of the overall crypto market | Fortune

Watch out crypto-bros—it might be time to start moving assets. Researchers are making progress toward quantum computers powerful enough to undermine the mathematical assumptions that currently protect cryptocurrency and other blockchain-based assets.Because of this, the industry needs to replace its cryptographic infrastructure before the quantum computers arrive.


“The great quantum migration is going to require the entire digital asset industry to participate,” Christopher Smith, co-founder...
Fortune •

People are going to extreme lengths to stop themselves from being filmed through Meta’s ‘pervert glasses’ | Fortune

There’s an ongoing arms race to protect identities and privacy in the age of facial recognition, biometric scanning and data collection. Now, some of those concerns are coming from the influx of wearables, namely, smart glasses, and how to go about protecting oneself from being filmed in public. Some joke about singing Disney songs, others use software, and some have even resorted to physical tricks. And the concern is warranted: Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, for example, have been coined “perver...
Fortune •

Universities are buying and selling property for data centers, prompting concerns about an AI brain drain | Fortune

The AI boom is putting a new kind of pressure on American universities. The topic of AI has long been a point of contention within higher education from educators, students, and university administrations discussing the presence and use cases of the technology. But now it’s turned to a much more physical threat.


As data centers compete for large parcels with access to electricity, water, and fiber infrastructure, universities are finding themselves sitting on property that can be worth more a...
Fortune •

Everything’s bigger in Texas: Musk’s planned $16.8 billion chip factory is five times bigger than the world’s current largest building | Fortune

Elon Musk is betting that the next phase of his sprawling technology empire will require a building on a scale that has never existed before. SpaceX and Tesla are building Terafab, a 100-million-square-foot semiconductor manufacturing facility in Grimes County, Texas, more than five times the size of the world’s largest building.“Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far. And it will be stunningly beautiful,” Musk wrote on X. 


With about 18.9 million square...
Fortune •

Kalshi cracks down on insider trading as Trump family looks to increase prediction market presence | Fortune

In Washington, there is plenty of information that can move a market. A government official may know what a president is preparing to announce, whether a particular policy is about to change, or which officials will attend a major event. As prediction markets increasingly list contracts tied to political decisions and government activity, that information can become directly tradable.The issue is already emerging on Kalshi, which has become one of the industry’s largest platforms. The company ha...
Fortune •

After months of a public back and forth over Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax, Ken Griffin isn’t ready to give up on New York after all | Fortune

One filmed a widely regarded publicity “stunt” outside the other’s $238 million penthouse. The latter responded by telling the former he was doxxing him, told him to read a history book, and waved a major $4.5 billion project over the former’s head. Months passed, a new tax was introduced, and fans of both sides charged the other. And after all this back and forth, nothing changed.Ken Griffin’s public feud with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has not stopped Citadel from doubling down in Manh...
Fortune •

‘This is insider trading by definition’: Trump sells $100,000 monthly subscription service to Wall Street to further monetize the presidency | Fortune

Donald Trump has created a way for Wall Street to pay to win. Trump Media & Technology Group’s premium data product released its new subscription service for earlier access to Truth Social posts for $100,000 a month. According to reports, five Wall Street firms have already signed up for the service, gaining access to Truth Social posts milliseconds before the general public.“I’ll be blunt,” Gian Luca Clementi, an economics professor at NYU Stern School of Business, told Fortune. “This is inside...
Fortune •

'We’re on top of every restock': This 24-year-old has made over $4 million off his subscription-based reselling community | Fortune

JS, the founder of ShockedIO, doesn’t want to reveal his name. But he will tell you how he made $4.4 million since launching his subscription-based reselling community in 2020.For most shoppers, a PlayStation 5 listed for $50 would seem impossible. For the members of ShockedIO, it can trigger hundreds of notifications within seconds. 


Behind the alerts is an army of software bots scanning thousands of online retailers, watching for inventory restocks, limited-edition product launches and pric...
Fortune •

‘My childhood home is being taken’: Eminent domain for data centers targets properties across a thousand miles of grid expansion in Georgia | Fortune

A public utility company in Georgia is proposing a transmission project that can potentially displace hundreds of property owners as it looks to expand its energy capabilities to power new AI data center projects. Georgia Power is rolling out a grid expansion plan that includes building more than 1,000 miles of transmission lines—spanning over 330 parcels of land, including through residential property—and adding about 10 gigawatts of new generating capacity over the next five years. Building th...
Fortune •

The Miami Heat, LeBron James, and prediction markets: How a ‘mistake’ social media post turbocharged a $245 million wager | Fortune

On Tuesday night, the Miami Heat accidentally published, then deleted, a YouTube video titled “LeBron James Introductory Press Conference,” dated for later this month. A team spokesperson told the Miami Herald the post was a mistake, made while the club prepared materials for “the possibility of James eventually deciding to join the Heat this offseason.”Shortly after the video was removed, the team reposted an opening for a director of YouTube strategy on LinkedIn. 


James, still a free agent...
Fortune •

Spain lifted the World Cup, but the IRS still gets a cut of its $50 million pay day as players, coaches and refs all face complex U.S. “jock taxes” | Fortune

Spain’s victory over Argentina in the 2026 FIFA World Cup final not only secured the country’s first men’s World Cup title in more than a decade—it also came with  a $50 million prize from FIFA. While the trophy now sits in Madrid, a portion of the prize money could ultimately find its way to Washington. That’s because many of the players, coaching staff and referees who earned income during the tournament may have also incurred U.S. tax obligations.It doesn’t stop there: the Spanish players wil...
Newsday •

Long Island grads leave over high costs, job crunch

This story was reported by Amber Bianchi, Ava Epstein, Mercedes Hamilton, Viyang Hao, Aidan Johnson, Dylan Murphy, Lara Murray-Sterzel, Michelle Rabinovich, Emma Tufo and Lauren Zola. It was written by Hamilton. Graphics and design by Joshua Hong.Delaney Hallahan, a senior studying history at SUNY New Paltz, dreams of working at a nonprofit museum after graduation. But federal cuts to arts funding, economic uncertainty tied to tariffs and executive orders targeting agencies such as the Institute...
The GW Hatchet •

Men’s basketball blows out UMass 74-52, secures statement homecoming victory

Men’s basketball (18-10, 7-8 Atlantic 10) overcame Massachusetts (11-17, 6-9 A-10) 74-52 on Saturday, marking GW’s first win at home this month.
With both GW and UMass coming into action at 6-8 in the standings, the win puts the Revolutionaries in a tie for seventh in the A-10 conference and moves the Minutemen to 12th. GW’s leading scorers were redshirt freshman guard Christian Jones with 17 points and redshirt junior forward Rafael Castro with 13. Castro recorded his 12th double-double of the...
The GW Hatchet •

Ukrainian art exhibit showcases resilience, cultural survival amid ongoing war

A Ukrainian soldier’s military ID card, fragments from a Russian jet and a propeller from an Iranian drone sat on display at the Smith Hall of Art for over a month in an exhibit that concluded Sept. 28.

The exhibition, titled “We Know Who They Are” spotlights a curation of Ukrainian artwork developed by junior Benjamin Cunningham, a political science and fine arts student, and Yevgen Nemchenko, a professional Ukrainian artist. Cunningham said the project serves as a reminder of the need to preserve Ukraine’s cultural identity amid the ongoing war with Russia, which has escalated in the past two years following Russia’s invasion of the country.

Featured Data Viz

Explore a featured selection of my data viz work below.