Lynnsey Gardner

Lynnsey Gardner is an Edward R. Murrow award-winning investigative reporter and fill-in anchor for The Local Station.

She joined the I-TEAM at News4Jax in September 2015 and her investigative reports have already prompted a federal investigation. In September, Gardner was the first to expose deplorable living conditions at a Jacksonville subsidized housing complex, Eureka Gardens. Her series of investigative reports have led to HUD invalidating their own inspection score, a response from the city including a code-enforcement raid spearheaded by Mayor Curry, and now Senator Marco Rubio has passed three amendments to overhaul the HUD inspection process. 

Rubio also has requested four federal investigations of the property owner by the Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Treasury, HUD and a senate committee telling Gardner it’s “exclusively” due to what she uncovered with unsanitary living conditions and possible financial gain for the owner and not the tenants in need. The series has already been awarded “Best Continuing Coverage” by the Florida Associated Press.

Gardner also investigated whistleblower claims of financial waste at the Jacksonville-based Wounded Warrior Project. Her reports were recognized by Counting Charity as the most “in-depth” dive into the scandal and are attributed on Charity Navigator. From the national fallout, the top two leaders were fired and a third resigned. Currently, the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating the charity’s finances with Senator Chuck Grassley telling Wounded Warrior Project there are “new and serious questions” over how hundreds of millions of dollars in donations are being spent on our nation’s injured veterans.
Gardner also uncovered a local business, Floaters sanitation, was improperly disposing of waste into a city sewer system. Her reports lead to the company being fined $88,000 by JEA.

Gardner began working as a journalist in Jacksonville in 2012 after first beginning her broadcast journalism career in 2006 working as a reporter/multi-media journalist at WRDW-TV, the CBS affiliate in Augusta, Georgia. She was quickly promoted to weekend anchor before moving to the morning desk as an anchor in 2009. She then found herself anchoring morning news in Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida, for the next five years.
Her investigative work has won praise including a regional Edward R. Murrow award for best investigative reporting after exposing a funeral home was improperly handling human remains. The same investigation also earned top investigative honors from the Georgia Associated Press and the Georgia Association of Broadcasters. 

She also received the GABBY for best on-air personality in Georgia as well as several other investigative honors throughout her career from the Georgia Associated Press.
After moving all across the south her entire life, Lynnsey knows that Jacksonville is the perfect city for this southern girl to continue her career. Born in Texas and raised in Alabama, and mostly in Georgia, Lynnsey is a proud summa cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia. She earned her bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism with a minor in political science.

Lynnsey is a devoted Georgia Bulldog along with the rest of her family who are all alumni. Go Dawgs! In 2010, The Grady College of Journalism at UGA awarded her the prestigious John E. Drewry Award for Young Alumni Achievement.

When not working, traveling, or cheering on the Dawgs, you’ll find Lynnsey and her husband enjoying the beaches and all that the River City has to offer. Lynnsey and her husband welcomed their first child, a baby girl, in 2015.