Sarah Blustain

Deputy Editor, Local

Sarah Blustain is deputy editor, local. In this role she helps oversee ProPublica’s local journalism initiatives, including its Local Reporting Network, its joint initiative with The Texas Tribune, the addition of offices in the South and the Southwest and the expansion of its presence in the Midwest.

She came to ProPublica from Type Investigations (formerly the Investigative Fund), where for seven years she spearheaded longform investigative projects for the nonprofit newsroom. At Type Investigations Blustain oversaw award-winning projects that resulted in congressional hearings and resignations, legislative changes and canceled public contracts. Central themes of her editorial work have included corporate accountability, environmental degradation, conflict zone reporting, reproductive rights and women’s issues more broadly. As deputy and then executive editor, she also helped establish newsroom protocols; negotiated complex print, radio and video partnerships; and mentored younger colleagues.

Blustain previously served as senior editor for Newsweek/The Daily Beast and The New Republic, deputy editor of The American Prospect and a reporter and editor for Lilith. Her reporting and writing has also appeared in The Nation, Mother Jones, Democracy and Salon.

Participating Sessions

LOCAL JOURNALISM: OF DESERTS AND REGROWTH

“All journalism is local” goes the old saw, but if so, then all journalism is in trouble. In the last seventeen years, a quarter of all American newspapers have gone under, with local papers in small communities disappearing fastest. With them goes accountability. Where once there were vital avenues for reasoned public debate, there are now news deserts, lacking any ongoing press presence. The Storm Lake Times, captured in the...