The Center for Public Integrity announced today that veteran journalist Jim Morris has been named executive editor.
An editor and reporter since 1978, Morris has won more than 80 awards for his work, including the IRE Medal, the George Polk award, the Sidney Hillman award, three National Association of Science Writers awards and two Edward R. Murrow awards.
He has edited reporters that won national honors, including the Pulitzer Prize and the White House Correspondents Association award. He worked at newspapers in Texas and California before coming to Washington, D.C., in 1999.
His 2018 story on worker safety lapses in Kentucky, jointly reported with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and Ohio Valley ReSource, recently won an award for Excellence in Healthcare Journalism by the Association for Health Care Journalists. The series was also a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award.
Morris has been at the Center more than 11 years. He served most recently as interim CEO; before that he was managing editor for environment and workers’ rights.
“Jim knows the Center inside out, and his body of work here and throughout his career packs a punch,” said CEO Susan Smith Richardson. “In his new role, he will continue to lead the organization to new heights of journalistic excellence while championing innovative ways of telling stories and reaching audiences at a time when investigative journalism about government and powerful interests couldn’t be more important to people’s lives and livelihoods.”
“I’m honored to take this position at one of the few newsrooms in America that still emphasizes in-depth, investigative reporting,” Morris said. “The Center is poised to make its work more meaningful to people outside of Washington, and I’m happy to be a part of that effort.”
The Center for Public Integrity was founded in 1989 by former “60 Minutes” producer Charles Lewis with the mission of exposing abuses of power by government and corporate interests. Among its many noteworthy stories were those that exposed how major political contributors were rewarded with overnight stays at the White House; how doctors and lawyers worked with the coal industry to defeat benefits claims of miners dying from black lung; and how the wealthy have exploited offshore tax havens in the Panama Papers. The Center recently won a Gerald Loeb award in partnership with NPR for an investigation into how pharmaceutical companies inflated Medicaid costs across America.
Morris starts his new position immediately. He will take over from Gordon Witkin.
Follow Jim Morris on Twitter: @JimGMorris.