Chronicle hires new investigative editor
The San Francisco Chronicle has hired an awardwinning journalist to lead investigative reporting and narrative projects.
Lisa Gartner will join The Chronicle next month from the Philadelphia Inquirer, where she has worked as an investigative reporter since 2018. While at the Inquirer, Gartner wrote “Beaten, Then Silenced,” revealing a pattern of abuse at the Glen Mills reform school in Pennsylvania. The school housed youths from across the country, including from San Francisco.
Shortly after the stories published, the state shut down the school after 193 years. The project won a George Polk Award for justice reporting.
Prior to the Inquirer, Gartner worked as an education and enterprise reporter at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. With two colleagues there, Gartner was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in local reporting and a Livingston Award for “Failure Factories,” a series of stories documenting how a school board abandoned integration and “turned five schools in the county’s black neighborhoods into some of the worst in Florida.”
“Failure Factories” led to a dramatic overhaul of the Pinellas County school district.
Other notable stories by Gartner include an account of a teacher’s return to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., after the tragic 2018 shooting; and “Wrong Way,” a tale of young car thieves in Florida and what they’re really running from. Both were published in “The Best American Newspaper Narratives.”
“Lisa has a track record of producing work that is not only compelling but improves people’s lives by forcing change,” said Demian Bulwa, The Chronicle’s managing editor overseeing news. “This is one of the most vital roles of a newspaper, and Lisa will help us broaden our focus on the most ambitious and impactful stories.”