I use data to power accountability journalism. That means digging through databases and public records to uncover stories about how your identity and zip code can affect the kind of justice you get in Southern California.
As a data reporter, my work spans different beats. I’ve covered the avalanche of outside money in local politics, spiking firearms sales, Los Angeles’ bicycle infrastructure, and police militarization. I helped build a unique database on police shootings in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties for KPCC’s Officer Involved project.
I attended Macalester College and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and got my start in journalism at KFAI Fresh Air Radio in Minneapolis.
Jessica Meaney is the Founder and Executive Director of Investing in Place, an organization committed to transportation investments that strengthen communities. Jessica moved to Los Angeles over 20 years ago and chose not to own a car. It was a choice she was privileged to make and continues to inspire her professional commitment to improve Greater Los Angeles County to become more safe, reliable, and accessible for all, especially for those with the least options. This passion pushed her to create Investing in Place in January 2015.
Haley Potiker is a Communications Specialist at LAANE. Prior to joining LAANE in 2017, she worked on 2017’s ‘No on S’ and 2016’s ‘Yes on HHH’, as well as for a variety of other ballot measures, politicians, and nonprofits. Haley especially treasures her time spent with the communications offices of Senator Barbara Boxer’s 2010 re-election campaign and with then-city council president Eric Garcetti. Haley graduated from Occidental College in 2013 with a B.A. in Politics. Born in Long Beach and raised in Orange County, she has called the east side of LA home for the better part of a decade but still cheers for the Anaheim Angels.
Senior writer Doug Smith scouts Los Angeles for the ragged edges where public policy meets real people, combining data analysis and gumshoe reporting to tell L.A. stories through his 45 years of experience covering the city. As past database editor from 2004 through 2015, he hunted down and analyzed data for news and investigative projects. Besides “Grading the Teachers,” he contributed to investigations of construction abuse in the community college system and the rising toll of prescription drug overdoses. Smith has been at The Times since 1970, covering local and state government, criminal justice, politics and education. He was the lead writer for Times’ coverage of the infamous North Hollywood shootout, winner of a 1997 Pulitzer Prize. Between 2005 and 2008, Smith made five trips to Iraq on loan to our foreign desk.
Benjamin Oreskes is a general assignment reporter in the California section. Previously, he wrote the Essential California newsletter. Before coming to The Times in February 2017, Oreskes covered foreign policy at Politico in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Northwestern University, and looks forward to seeing the Wildcats play in the Rose Bowl sometime soon.
Matt Tinoco is a journalist who grew up in Los Angeles. His work on various Los Angeles-related subjects can be found in publications like Mother Jones, Politico Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books and Curbed Los Angeles.
Carolina A. Miranda is a Los Angeles Times staff writer covering a wide gamut of culture, including visual art, architecture and film, not to mention performance art cabaret divas. Her work often looks at how art intersects with politics, gender and race — from the ways in which artists are tackling the U.S.-Mexico border to the ways in which art intersects with development and gentrification. She is a regular contributor to KCRW’s “Press Play” and was a winner of the 2017 Rabkin Prize in Visual Arts Journalism.
Daniel Michael Hernandez is a Mexican American journalist and author with nearly 20 years of experience working successfully in all areas of the modern media industry. He is currently a reporter for the Styles section of The New York Times.
Daniel’s career includes stints as a reporter at a major newspaper (L.A. Times) and alternative weekly (LA Weekly), editor of a monthly print magazine (VICE México), a contributor and host for radio (All Things Considered, The World, KCRW Morning Edition, The Frame), and as a correspondent and producer for television and documentary films (VICE News). Daniel founded one of the earliest general-interest news and culture blogs in Los Angeles, Intersections (2006), and is also author of a non-fiction book based on fieldwork in Mexico, “Down and Delirious in Mexico City” (Scribner, 2011)
