Rebecca Woolington Named Deputy Editor of the Long-term Investigations Team
Rebecca comes to us from the Tampa Bay Times, where she is the deputy managing editor for investigations, overseeing a team of investigative and data journalists on award-winning projects.
In a collaboration with the Metro department, Rebecca led a series that exposed increasing numbers of overdose deaths and other dangers associated with kratom, a virtually unregulated substance with opioid-like qualities rapidly taking root in Florida. The investigation prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to issue a nationwide warning about a potent form of the substance and won a 2023 Investigative Reporters & Editors Award.
Rebecca has also edited investigations exposing heat deaths in Florida and lax safety laws for construction cranes, the latter of which prompted state lawmakers to pass stricter regulations. This year, an investigation she edited on the mass die-off of manatees off the coast of Florida caused federal lawmakers to call for action to prevent further pollution of the state's waterways and won the May Sidney Award. Rebecca has also contributed to breaking stories, helping to shepherd enterprise work on the hurricanes that battered Florida's Gulf Coast in recent years.
Rebecca joined the Tampa Bay Times in 2018 as an investigative reporter. Alongside two colleagues, she won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for stories on a local lead factory that, by ignoring key regulations, created toxic hazards that threatened the safety of its workers. That series, 'Poisoned,' also won the George Polk Award for Local Reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal, among other honors.
Before her impressive run in Florida, Rebecca was an investigative reporter for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore., where she revealed criminal justice abuses involving unhoused people, police officer misconduct and, in one egregious case, preferential treatment that allowed a state police trooper convicted of child abuse to keep his gun.
Born and raised in Portland, Rebecca attended Portland Community College and the University of Oregon, where she graduated with honors from the School of Journalism and Communication. She started her career as a general assignment reporter for the Herald and News in Klamath Falls, Ore., covering a mix of breaking news and daily features.
Outside of journalism, Rebecca enjoys hiking, cooking, thrifting, bowling and reading novels and poetry. She loves live music almost as much as her two black cats, Caroline and Claudette, who we've been assured are both 'floofs.'
Rebecca starts on Nov. 10 in the D.C. newsroom. Please join us in welcoming her to The Post.
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