We’ve got an exciting new announcement. From a press release issued earlier today:
SAN DIEGO — At a time when newspapers around the country are aggressively cutting their staffs, the nonprofit online daily voiceofsandiego.org continued its growth this month with the addition of two new investigative reporters.
Regular readers of San Diego news are familiar with the first reporter — David Washburn, an award-winning investigative reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune during the last eight years. Washburn will join voiceofsandiego.org as a senior writer, specializing in in-depth political and government reporting. He will also help in the editing and development of stories with staff writers. In addition to his daily newspaper experience, Washburn is finishing up a master’s degree at San Diego State University in film and multimedia.
“I have followed voice since it first went live in 2005, and the accomplishments of this small band of journalists in the realm of public service reporting has been nothing short of amazing,” Washburn said. “I am honored to be joining a group of such talented and dedicated people, and can’t wait to get started.”
The political beat filled by Washburn has long been central to voiceofsandiego.org‘s core coverage. With the second hire, voiceofsandiego.org is branching out into a new area of coverage — science.
Joaquin Sapien, a former investigative reporter at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., will take over the science beat. Sapien, a native Californian, gained attention last year for “Wasting Away,” a year-long investigation that “reveals the beleaguered state of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund effort, uncovers the companies and government agencies linked to the most sites and tracks progress of the clean up,” according to the Center’s website.
Sapien will spearhead voiceofsandiego.org‘s efforts to cover San Diego’s influential and important science and technology community. San Diego researchers and entrepreneurs are doing amazing, controversial and sometimes overlapping work in the technological field. This work is undoubtedly generating incredible stories of triumph, discovery, innovation and even controversy and scandal. Unfortunately, at the same time, the media outlets that exist to tell their stories are scaling back, opening the door for voiceofsandiego.org to bring its investigative and enterprising brand of reporting to a new field.
“As San Diego County becomes an international hub for biotechnology and telecommunications, I am excited to deliver in-depth coverage of an array of issues facing the scientific and business communities, including conflicts of interest, integrity in science, and corporate accountability,” Sapien said.
The two reporters will join us later this month. We couldn’t be more excited to have them aboard.