Amy Pyle named new editor in chief of The Center for Investigative Reporting

EMERYVILLE, Calif. – The Center for Investigative Reporting has named Amy Pyle as its new editor in chief.

Pyle has been leading CIR’s newsroom as managing editor since September. She joined CIR in 2012 as a senior editor and became managing editor two years later.

In her new role, Pyle will oversee all editorial work for CIR’s newsroom, which publishes its work at RevealNews.org and, with its partner PRX, produces the “Reveal” public radio show and podcast. The radio show airs on more than 250 stations nationwide. Pyle will report directly to CEO Joaquin Alvarado.

“A professor once told me not to go into journalism if I wanted to change the world, but I can’t think of any other reason to do this work,” Pyle said. “That’s why my time at CIR and the opportunity to help launch ‘Reveal’ has been so rewarding. As editor in chief, I want to see this newsroom continue to make a difference, by focusing on investigations that not only inform, but expose wrongdoing and hold those responsible to task.”

“The nationwide search for our new editor in chief has allowed us to reflect on the core mission of CIR to do critical investigative reporting and our imperative to engage diverse new audiences with beautifully told stories that improve – and even save – lives,” Alvarado said. “Amy’s experience, leadership and demonstrated success stood out and position us to continue to innovate with partners on journalism that makes a difference.”

Highlights of Pyle’s work as an editor at CIR include Rehab Racket, a collaboration with CNN that exposed widespread fraud in government-funded drug and alcohol rehab clinics. The reporting led to the closure of hundreds of scamming clinics, the arrests of clinic managers and large-scale taxpayer savings; the multiplatform series won the top broadcast award from Investigative Reporters and Editors. She also has overseen CIR’s veterans coverage, including an investigation into the epidemic of opiate prescriptions by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Since the publication of that story, there have been congressional hearings and official investigations, and the number of veterans being prescribed highly addictive narcotics has dropped by more than 100,000. CIR won its first George Foster Peabody Award for the radio version of that story.

“Amy is a consummate editor with deep and impressive roots in the critical craft of investigative journalism,” said Phil Bronstein, executive chair of CIR’s board of directors. “She has exactly the right temperament and courage to ensure that CIR’s unique combination of vision, risk-taking and ambition carries on into ever new and innovative methods of storytelling with investigative reporting at its core.”

“I have total confidence in Amy as a leader and journalist,” said Robert J. Rosenthal, executive director of CIR. “I’m looking forward to working closely with her to help shape and refine our editorial vision and to make our stories as meaningful and relevant as possible.”

Previously in her journalism career, Pyle was assistant managing editor for investigations at The Sacramento Bee. There, she managed numerous award-winning projects, including Chief’s Disease, an exposé of pension spiking at the California Highway Patrol that prompted widespread reforms and won a George Polk Award, and State of Denial, which uncovered how conflicts between California’s strict environmental restrictions and its unrestricted consumption ravage remote corners of the world. It won the international Reuters-IUCN award.

She also spent a decade as a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times, where, as assistant city editor, she directed coverage from the parking lot of the Times’ quake-damaged San Fernando Valley edition in the early morning hours after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The coverage of that 6.7-magnitude quake earned the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting. As a Times reporter, she covered a variety of beats, ranging from education to state government.

For questions, contact Managing Director Meghann Farnsworth at mfarnsworth@cironline.org.