Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter Austin Grabish traded in winter boots for a surfboard and has over a decade of reporting experience.
He joined the ABC 10News team in Jan. 2023 after moving to San Diego from Canada, where he worked as a staff reporter at CBC, the country’s national public broadcaster.
Austin’s investigative reporting during his first year in San Diego resulted in a criminal conviction, helped consumers get thousands of dollars back and exposed a doctor who admitted to putting a hidden camera in a hospital restroom before moving out of state to work.
Austin won an Emmy Award in 2024 for his investigation into a burial at sea business that went dark after taking human ashes from customers across the country. The story triggered multiple state investigations and won an award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
His reporting on the migrant border crisis during the lead-up to the end of Title 42 was nominated for an Emmy Award and shined a light on the human faces often lost in the fierce debate around U.S. immigration.
Austin covers the Medical Board of California, military investigations, and is a watchdog on local government.
He has extensive experience using freedom of information laws to source documents for investigative stories that haven’t been told.
In Canada, Austin’s stories aired on the country’s flagship national nightly newscast: The National, and on CBC News Network. He also reported for national radio and his work aired on over a dozen local CBC TV stations.
His dogged reporting on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights won the investigative excellence award from RTDNA Canada in 2021 and triggered the resignation of the organization’s CEO. Austin revealed the national museum forced staff to hide LGBT material and women’s rights content when religious school groups were present.
He also exposed a string of sexual harassment complaints from female employees who alleged HR dismissed them. His reporting led to multiple resignations.
In 2020, Austin was instrumental in showing how Indigenous communities were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. He reported from a remote fly-in community as the military was deployed to help fight the battle. Austin was also instrumental in covering the impact of mandatory lockdowns on businesses and the government’s failure to properly contact trace during the pandemic.
In 2019, Austin led CBC’s network coverage providing around-the-clock updates from the ground in Northern Canada during the manhunt for serial teenage killers Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod. The teenagers were wanted for killing an American woman, her Australian boyfriend, and a university lecturer. The manhunt is among the largest in Canadian history and was followed by news outlets around the world.
A year prior, Austin won the national RTDNA Canada Ron Laidlaw Award for his extensive reporting on asylum seekers who lost limbs to frostbite after risking their lives to enter Canada on foot in the middle of the winter. His in-depth reporting later revealed how hundreds of other asylum seekers had risked their lives to come into the country from the United States and documented one woman’s fatal attempt to get asylum.
Austin’s stories have been followed by international news outlets including the New York Times, New York Post, Washington Post, the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Before starting his broadcasting career, Austin reported for several Canadian newspapers.
Austin is thrilled to now call America’s Finest City home and welcomes any story ideas, tips and feedback from viewers.
Austin can be reached by email at austin.grabish@10news.com
