Australian journalist Jonathan Swan wins Emmy for his viral interview with Donald Trump

Australian journalist Jonathan Swan has won an Emmy award for his widely acclaimed interview with Donald Trump in which he bluntly fact-checked the president’s misleading statements.

In August last year the national political correspondent at the Axios news site grabbed international headlines when he doggedly but politely questioned the US president about his response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I’m deeply honoured to have won this award, and grateful for the gifted, generous team who helped make the interview a great piece of journalism,” Swan told Guardian Australia after winning the Emmy award for outstanding edited interview.

Swan’s myriad facial expressions during the Axios on HBO interview also attracted the attention of social media, launching a popular meme.

The 36-year-old had Trump shuffling through his papers as he put him on the spot about the death toll in the US.

“Well, right here, United States is lowest in numerous categories,” Trump said. “We’re lower than the world.”

Swan: “Lower than the world? Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population.”

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Another part of the interview which was startling was Trump’s claim that he had “done more” to improve the lives of black people in the US than the late civil rights leader John Lewis.

Ben Smith wrote in the New York Times that it was “perhaps the best interview of Mr Trump’s term”.

Swan is a former Sydney Morning Herald journalist who moved to the US in 2014, and is the son of ABC health editor Dr Norman Swan.

Father and son have been covering the coronavirus for almost two years, albeit from different perspectives and on different sides of the world.

Norman and health reporter Tegan Taylor host the hugely popular Coronacast podcast on ABC.

Jonathan achieved early success in Australia, winning the prestigious Wallace Brown young achiever award for journalism in 2014 after a string of scoops about the questionable use of taxpayer funds by politicians, which led to an overhaul of the rules governing parliamentary entitlements and expenses. The judges commended his “dogged determination”.

The 42^nd Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards were announced by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in New York on Tuesday night US time.