Honolulu Star-Advertiser investigative reporter Rob Perez has been selected for the ProPublica Distinguished Fellows program.
Perez is among six reporters across the country in the inaugural fellows program, it was announced Monday.
The program will fund Perez’s salary and benefits for three years as he produces projects on various topics affecting Hawaii. His work will be co-published by the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica.
An outgrowth of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network — which since 2018 has similarly funded local accountability reporting projects for one year across more than 40 local newsrooms to date — the longer-term Distinguished Fellows program will enable reporters to pursue a broad range of stories while deepening ProPublica’s relationship with the partner newsrooms and their communities. These partnerships will start Jan. 1 and run through Dec. 31, 2023.
Perez has been a journalist for more than 40 years, working for newspapers in Hawaii, California, Florida and his native Guam. As a participant in the ProPublica Local Reporting Network this year, he is investigating the decades-long failure of the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to return Native Hawaiians to ancestral lands. Among other honors, Perez has been awarded with the Dart Award for Excellence in
Coverage of Trauma, the National Headliner Award and Best of the West Awards.
“We are excited for Rob that his investigative journalism skills are being recognized nationally as deep and impactful to our community,” said Star-Advertiser President and Publisher Dennis Francis. “His selection to this prestigious group of investigative journalists from across the nation makes us proud that he is a part of the best and largest newsroom in Hawaii. We look forward to his reporting and continued partnership with ProPublica.”
The other selected reporters are Kyle Hopkins, special projects editor of the Anchorage Daily News; Molly Parker, a reporter for The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale, Ill.; Jennifer Smith Richards, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune; Wendi C. Thomas, editor and publisher of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom in Memphis, Tenn., focused on poverty, power and public policy; and Ken Ward Jr., a longtime investigative reporter in his home state of West Virginia.
“We couldn’t be happier with the inaugural group of ProPublica Distinguished Fellows, who are among the top journalists in America,” Charles Ornstein, ProPublica managing editor/
local, said. “ProPublica has worked with all of them before, either through the
Local Reporting Network or as longtime reporting partners, on deep investigative projects that have held power to account. We’re thrilled to continue these relationships over the next three years.”
