ProPublica Names Jeff Gerth, Dafna Linzer To Staff

By: Joe Strupp ProPublica, the new non-profit investigative news project, announced late Tuesday three new staff members, including veteran journalists from The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The news outlet also revealed that it had received nearly 900 resumes from prospective staffers since October, according to a press release.

Jeff Gerth, a former staff correspondent for The Times, and Dafna Linzer, a staff writer for the Post, are both joining as senior reporters, Pro Publica revealed in the release. Scott Klein, vice president/website & technology for The Nation magazine, has also been named director of online development.

?Managing Editor Steve Engelberg and I are delighted to have been able to recruit Jeff Gerth, Dafna Linzer and Scott Klein to ProPublica,? Paul E. Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, said in a statement. ?With these three stellar additions, we?re off to a great start in building a very strong investigative news team.?

?ProPublica, when fully staffed later this year, will have the largest news staff in American journalism devoted solely to investigative reporting, with roughly 25 fulltime reporters and editors,? the release added. ?ProPublica will be supported entirely by philanthropy and will provide the articles it produces, free of charge, both through its own web site and to leading news organizations selected with an eye toward maximizing the impact of each article.?

Engelberg, managing editor of ProPublica and a former managing editor of The Oregonian in Portland, added: ?We?ve received nearly 900 resumes from journalists since ProPublica was announced back in October. Having opened our doors in January, we?ve now completed our initial review of this terrific array of talent, and further assessed our own needs. The strong hires we?re announcing today are just the beginning of our efforts to quickly build a first-rate news staff for ProPublica.?

Gerth, an investigative reporter at The Times from 1976 through 2005, has also won two Pulitzer Prizes, editors said. Gerth is the co-author (with Don Van Natta Jr.), of "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," published last year.

Linzer has been a national security reporter for The Post, covering intelligence and nonproliferation, since 2004. Klein has worked at thenation.com since 1998, ?directing all business aspects of the site,? the release said.
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