The East Valley Tribune is losing another member of its Pulitzer-prize-winning team: Reporter Ryan Gabrielson (right), the lead writer of the award-winning series on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, is heading to UC-Berkeley to work as a journalism fellow.
Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism fellowship, which the school says is the only one of its kind in the country, is designed to nurture investigative reporters "in an era of cutbacks at major news organizations." Lowell Bergman (at left), the former 60 Minutes producer who was played by Al Pacino in The Insider, leads the program.Gabrielson's soon-to-be-former newspaper, the Trib, is one of those news organizations with cutbacks. National articles about the Trib's prize noted the ironic fact that editor Patti Epler and reporter Paul Giblin, who had worked on the series with Gabrielson, were laid off in January.
The Trib lost another heavy hitter recently, too: Mark Flatten joined the Goldwater Institute this month to work as an investigative researcher.
Of course, these moves should be considered opportunities by the newspaper's current reporting staff.
The above-linked announcement by UC-Berkeley states that this is the third round of selections for the fellowship positions. Besides Gabrielson, writer Matt Isaacs, a 1999 graduate of the school, will also take one of the positions. Fellows receive $45,000 plus travel expenses.
