Brian M. Rosenthal

Rosenthal grew up in Indiana and graduated from Northwestern University, where he was Editor in Chief of The Daily Northwestern.^[3]

Rosenthal started his career at local newspapers such as Pharos-Tribune in Logansport, Indiana, the Reno Gazette-Journal, The Seattle Times and The Orange County Register.

In 2011, he returned to The Seattle Times to cover education and the state house.^[4] His year-long series on Washington state's mental-health system spurred significant reforms and was cited in a landmark state Supreme Court case. While in Seattle, he was also part of a reporting team that won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News for coverage of a mudslide that killed 43 people.^[5]

He joined The Houston Chronicle in 2014 as a state bureau reporter based in Austin focused primarily on government and politics, and health and human services.^[6] His 7-part series, "Denied," revealed that Texas officials had secretly, systematically and illegally denied special education services to tens of thousands of children with disabilities for more than a decade. The investigation forced the state to pass several reforms and increase special education funding by $250 million. The Chronicle was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer in Public Service for the series.^[7]

In 2017, The New York Times announced Rosenthal's hire as part of an effort in “further expanding its already robust investigative team."^[8]

His signature investigations are known for citing "enormous sums of interviews": “nearly 100 current and former M.T.A. employees,”^[9] or “more than 100 other psychiatrists, nurses and officials”^[10] or “more than 300 experts, educators and parents.”^[11][12]

Rosenthal has won two George Polk Awards, the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, and was a finalist for the Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics. He also won a national Emmy Award in 2019 for his work as a producer on a mini-documentary.^[13]

He has served since 2019 as an elected member of the board of Investigative Reporters and Editors.^[14]

Discover more about Career related topics

The Seattle Times

The Seattle Times

The Seattle Times is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. The Seattle Times has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington state and the Pacific Northwest region.

George Polk Awards

George Polk Awards

The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the award as "one of only a couple of journalism prizes that means anything".

Investigative Reporters and Editors

Investigative Reporters and Editors

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE) is a nonprofit organization that focuses on improving the quality of journalism, in particular investigative journalism. Formed in 1975, it presents the IRE Awards and holds conferences and training classes for journalists. Its headquarters is in Columbia, Missouri, at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. It is the largest and oldest association of investigative journalism.