Pulitzer Prize winner elected iPost president

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David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author, has been elected president of Investigative Post’s board of directors.

Johnston was one of three new members appointed to the board of the investigative reporting center that serves Buffalo and Western New York. Also appointed were Eric Walker, co-founder of PUSH Buffalo, and Whitney Crispell, manager of an AmeriCorps VISTA program at The Service Collaborative of Western New York.

Johnston succeeds board president Lee Coppola, a former investigative reporter and retired dean of the School of Journalism at St. Bonaventure University. Coppola has accepted an appointment as a hearing officer with the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

“I have valued Lee’s counsel and his advocacy on behalf of investigative reporting. He has been a real champion of our craft and organization,” said Jim Heaney, Investigative’s Post’s editor and executive director.

“I welcome David’s involvement,” he continued. “He brings energy and national stature that will help us grow the organization. He’s already hit the ground running.”

Johnston has won three of journalism’s most prestigious awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the George Polk Award and an IRE Medal awarded by Investigative Reporters and Editors. Johnston has also authored several best-selling books, most recently, “The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use ‘Plain English’ to Rob You Blind.”

Johnston has worked for several prominent newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times, where he won the Pulitzer in 2001 for his reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the federal tax code.

He is currently a contributing editor with Newsweek and columnist with Al Jazeera America, National Memo, and Tax Analysts. A resident of suburban Rochester, Johnston is also a distinguished visiting lecturer at the Syracuse University College of Law and Whitman School of Management. He recently completed a two-year term as president of Investigative Reporters and Editors, the world’s largest professional organization of investigative journalists.

Robert Skerker was re-elected the board’s vice president and treasurer, while Jody Kleinberg Biehl was retained as secretary.

Skerker, a veteran of numerous community boards, is president of The Jacobs Institute, Inc, a non-profit innovation center dedicated to the treatment and elimination of vascular disease. Kleinberg-Biehl is director of the Journalism Certificate Program at the University at Buffalo and faculty adviser for the The Spectrum, U.B.’s student newspaper.

Tom Toles and Catharine Miles-Kania continue to serve as at large directors.

Toles won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1990 while with The Buffalo News. He joined The Washington Post in 2002. Miles-Kania is vice president of organizational advancement for Gateway-Longview, a child and family service organization serving the needs of disadvantaged children and families in Western New York.

Walker and Crispell join them as at large directors.

Walker has nearly a decade of experience working at the intersection of community organizing, neighborhood revitalization, sustainability and economic justice. He is presently a racial equity fellow with the Center for Social Inclusion.

Crispell formerly served as the chief of staff to Erie County Legislator Maria Whyte and Niagara Common Council Member David Rivera. She was a founding board member of Buffalo ReUse and serves on the board of the Erie County Commission on the Status of Women.

Heaney serves as ex-officio member of board. He is a former investigative reporter with The Buffalo News and finalist for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize.

Investigative Post is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit that began publishing in February 2012. The organization has a two-fold mission: produce investigative and analytical coverage on issues of importance to Buffalo and Western New York, and train young journalists in the craft of investigative reporting.

Investigative Post distributes its work through a number of media outlets, primarily WGRZ TV and its website, InvestigativePost.org. Selected content is distributed through Artvoice, City & State, The Buffalo News, and WBFO FM, the region’s NPR outlet. Investigative Post stories have reached a collective audience of 14 million viewers, readers and listeners.