E. Assata Wright is a freelance journalist who lives in Jersey City and covers New Jersey politics. For six years she covered Hudson County politics and municipal issues as a staff writer for the Hudson Reporter, where she had the Jersey City and Secaucus beats. While there, she received a Local Reporting award from the New Jersey chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for her coverage of Spectra Energy’s natural gas pipeline. In 2011 she shared a Public Service award from the New Jersey Press Association (NJPA) with fellow staff writers Al Sullivan and Ray Smith for their coverage hospital privatization in Hudson County, and she was part of the editorial staff that received a first place NJPA award for coverage of the 2009 “New Jersey sting” operation.