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.
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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.
Beyond Ratings: More Tools Coming to Pick Your Doctor
For years, patients have had few ways to compare doctors beyond their reputations. With a huge Medicare data release this week, that may soon change.
Leaders of Teaching Hospitals Have Close Ties to Drug Companies, Study Shows
Nearly every large drug maker based in the United States had at least one academic medical center official on its board, raising questions about their independence.
Judging Obamacare: How Do We Know If It’s a Success or Failure?
Sign-ups are supposed to formally end today, and attention is shifting from marketing to measuring whether the law is meetings its goals.
Reporting Recipe: Dollars for Docs
With more data on relationships between doctors and drug companies soon to be released, here are some ways journalists can use this information.
Double Dip: Doctors Paid to Advise, Promote Drug Companies That Fund Their Research
Research has been seen as less objectionable than other forms of interactions with drug companies, but 10 percent of researchers have multiple ties among the nine companies ProPublica analyzed. That raises questions about doctors’ impartiality.
Smoking Mad: Tobacco Users Caught Up in Insurer’s Obamacare 'Glitch'
After signing up for coverage and disclosing they were smokers, about 100 New Hampshire consumers, including Terry Wetherby, find their new Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield policies canceled because they were charged incorrect “non-smoker” rates.
During Final Obamacare Push, Conservative Author Sees Little to Celebrate
Fellow at American Enterprise Institute faults steps by the Obama administration to delay parts of the Affordable Care Act, saying they amount to dismantling the program in ways that will make it harder to sustain.
Ad Endorsing da Vinci Robot Violated U of Illinois Policies, Review Finds
When surgical team members endorsed the robot in an ad, controversy ensued. An internal review finds no ill intent, but says policies were violated, calls for clearer rules.
The Perils of Problematic Prescribing: A Double Dose of Warnings
Two new reports from the CDC show the dangers of overprescribing narcotics and antibiotics. Is there a way for doctors and consumers to make better decisions?
Medicare’s Drug Program Needs Stronger Protections Against Fraud, Watchdog Says
A new report finds that more than half of insurance companies in Medicare’s drug program haven’t reported fraud cases to the government. The findings echo an earlier ProPublica investigation that found fraud flourishing in the program.