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Olivia Paschal

Contributor

Olivia Paschal is a contributing writer with Facing South and a doctoral student in history at the University of Virginia. She was a staff reporter with Facing South for two years and spearheaded Poultry and Pandemic, Facing South's year-long investigation into conditions for Southern poultry workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her reporting has appeared in The Atlantic, the Huffington Post, Southerly, Scalawag, the Arkansas Times, and Civil Eats, among other publications. Olivia holds a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University.

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Articles by Olivia

House subcommittee finds more COVID in meatpacking plants than previously known

By Olivia Paschal
November 12, 2021 - A report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis found there were three times as many COVID-19 cases and deaths among workers at the five largest meatpacking companies in the pandemic's first year as previously known. But at a recent hearing on the report, most Republican lawmakers spent their time calling for an investigation into the pandemic's origins. 

A history of groundbreaking reporting on the South's poultry industry

By Olivia Paschal
June 1, 2021 - It was 32 years ago that Southern Exposure — the print forerunner to Facing South — set out to document conditions in the region's fast-growing poultry industry. Many of the problems it reported on continue today. And as our recent reporting has shown, the pandemic created new challenges for the industry's changing workforce while also presenting opportunities for organizing in an industry that's long resisted unionization.