Charles Ornstein
Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities.
Need to Get in Touch?
Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities. From 2008 to 2017, he was a senior reporter covering health care and the pharmaceutical industry. He then worked as a senior editor and deputy managing editor.
Prior to joining ProPublica, he was a member of the metro investigative projects team at the Los Angeles Times. In 2004, he and Tracy Weber were lead authors on a series on Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, a troubled hospital in South Los Angeles. The articles won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service.
In 2009, he and Weber worked on a series of stories that detailed serious failures in oversight by the California Board of Registered Nursing and nursing boards around the country. The work was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for public service.
Projects edited or co-edited by Ornstein have won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, the Scripps Howard Impact Award, the IRE Award, the Online Journalism Award and other major journalism honors.
He previously worked at the Dallas Morning News, where he covered health care on the business desk and worked in the Washington bureau. Ornstein is a past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists and an adjunct journalism professor at Columbia University. Ornstein is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Documents Raise New Questions About Valeant’s Pharmacy Relationships in California
A key Valeant pharmacy was denied a license in California for making false statements. Months later, people affiliated with it gained an ownership stake in a licensed pharmacy.
Medicare Spending for Hepatitis C Cures Surges
The cost of drugs for the liver disease in the first half of 2015 almost matches the total for all of 2014.
Bill Would Add Nurses, Physician Assistants to Pharma Payments Database
Drugmakers disclose their payments to doctors, dentists, even chiropractors. But spending on nurse practitioners and physician assistants is excluded. Legislation in the Senate would change that.
40 Years After Vietnam, Blue Water Navy Vets Still Fighting for Agent Orange Compensation
Though most didn’t step foot in Vietnam, some 90,000 Navy vets who served offshore may have been exposed to the chemical brew and seek benefits. The battle is playing out in the courts and in Congress. It boils down to a comma.
Congressional Leaders Ask FDA About Coumadin Safety
The move follows a ProPublica analysis showing mistakes involving the drug resulted in injuries and deaths of nursing home residents.
Foes Dive for Discarded Records in Abortion Clinic Dumpsters
Garbage has become an unlikely battleground in the abortion debate, as anti-abortion groups seek evidence of privacy violations in clinics’ trash. “Is it a little bit on the sketchy side?” one activist said of such tactics. “Yeah, maybe.”
Activists Pursue Private Abortion Details Using Public Records Laws
Across the country, those who support abortion rights and those who oppose them are feuding in court over how much information should be disclosed about women undergoing abortions. Supporters say there’s no margin for error. Opponents say it’s about ensuring quality care.
Treatment Tracker
We've updated our database of Medicare’s payments to individual doctors and other health professionals serving the 49 million seniors and disabled in its Part B program.
Patient Guide
When choosing a doctor who's right for you, you don't have to rely exclusively on a friend's recommendation or a referral. Now you can check whether your medical provider practices similarly to his or her peers.
Treatment Tracker Methodology
How we made a news app to compare doctors Medicare billing patterns.