ProPublica announced today that Heather Vogell and Ryan Gabrielson will soon join its staff as reporters, the first hires in a small wave of planned expansion.
Gabrielson comes from the Center for Investigative Reporting, where he has been a senior reporter since 2010. His reporting on violent crimes at California's board-and-care institutions for the developmentally disabled was a finalist last year for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Before that, Gabrielson spent five years at the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz., where he and Paul Giblin won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 2009. Their five-part series, “Reasonable Doubt,” revealed the price of a sheriff’s focus on illegal immigration, from slower emergency response times to high overtime costs. He started his career at The Monitor in McAllen, Texas.
“I'm elated to join ProPublica's first-rate newsroom, which I've long respected for its fearless and meticulous reporting,” Gabrielson said. He will start at ProPublica in the spring.
Vogell will join ProPublica from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where she has been a reporter since 2005. Her work there on test cheating in the public school system resulted in the indictments of the superintendent and 34 others. A series she co-authored, “Cheating Our Children,” examined suspicious test scores in public schools across the nation, becoming a 2013 finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Before the Journal-Constitution, she worked at The Charlotte Observer, The Chicago Tribune, and The Day, in New London, Conn.
“ProPublica is doing some really groundbreaking journalism at a time when that’s not such an easy thing to do, and I couldn’t be more excited to join them,” Vogell said. She will start in late February.
“We couldn’t wish for two better additions to our staff than Gabrielson and Vogell,” said Robin Fields, ProPublica’s managing editor. “Their talent and enthusiasm for our mandate will be invaluable as we expand our newsroom and take ProPublica’s work to the next level.”
