Richard Read
Richard Read (born 1957) is a freelance reporter based in Seattle, where he was a national reporter and bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times from 2019 to 2021.[1] A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he was a senior writer and foreign correspondent for The Oregonian, working for the Portland, Oregon newspaper from 1981 to 1986 and 1989 until 2016.
Read has reported from more than 60 countries and all seven continents, covering wars in Cambodia and Afghanistan and disasters including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Japan's 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident. He won his first Pulitzer
Early life
Read was born in
Career
Read was press secretary in 1980 for the
In 1996-1997, Read was a
Read left The Oregonian in 2016 after taking a buyout,[10] leaving words of advice to colleagues.[11]
In 2016, Read joined the public-interest investigative reporting team at NerdWallet,[12] a San Francisco company that helps consumers navigate personal finance. Team members investigated student-loan debt-relief companies, posting a Watch List of 150 businesses for borrowers to avoid.[13]
In 2019, Read became a national reporter and Seattle bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, covering Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii.[14] A story[15] by Read the next year on a super-spreading event early in the coronavirus pandemic gained a record online readership of more than 8 million, reporting on the deaths of two Skagit Valley Chorale members after a rehearsal on March 10, 2020.
According to a New York Times Sunday magazine article,[16] the story attracted the attention of researchers who went on to study the incident and prove that Covid-19 spread through the air via respiratory aerosols—not merely via droplets and surface contact. Scientists from 32 countries cited the choir incident as a prime example of airborne contagion when they urged the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control to acknowledge aerosols as a transmission route.[17] The agencies changed their guidance, potentially saving many lives.[18]
Read retired from the Los Angeles Times in September, 2021.[19]
Awards
Read won the
In 2000 he received the Oregon governor’s award for achievement in international business, and in 1999 and 2002 he was named the state’s international citizen of the year. In 2003, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Willamette University.[24]
In 2001, he was one of four reporters on a team that, with editorial writers, won The Oregonian the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for chronicling abuses by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.[25]
In 2009, Read was a member of a team named as a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for reports on a breakthrough in production of microprocessors.[26] He won first-place awards for reporting on social issues (2001,2005), business (1998, 2004, 2011), spot news (1997), education (1990) from the Pacific Northwest Society of Professional Journalists.[27] [28]
In 2011, he won first place for Best of the West business and financial reporting.[29] In 2012, he won first place for best feature story/personality from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.[30]
In 2018, Read received the National Press Club's Consumer Journalism Award for periodicals,[31] awarded to NerdWallet for his investigation of U.S. Agriculture Department failings in policing the $43 billion organic food industry.[32] A Costa Rican legislative committee held hearings on allegations reported by Read against USDA certifiers and a Costa Rican company accused of exporting "organic" pineapples grown with banned chemicals.[33]
Citations
Read is a frequent public speaker whose work has been cited in several books. Quoted in "Pulitzer's Gold: Behind the Prize for Public Service Journalism," by Roy J. Harris.[34] and cited in "Pulitzer's Gold: A Century of Public Service Journalism," by Roy J. Harris.[35] Approach as a foreign correspondent described in "Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting," by John Maxwell Hamilton.[36] Role in transformation of foreign reporting described in "News From Abroad," by Donald R. Shanor.[37]
Approach as a narrative writer described in "Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction," by
Work for Massachusetts crime commission[42] described in "John William Ward: An American Idealist," by Kim Townsend.[43][44]
Article[45] on a Covid-19 super-spreading event cited May 1, 2020, as evidence that the coronavirus spreads via air—in the scientific journal Indoor Air, "Transmission of SARS‐CoV‐2 by inhalation of respiratory aerosol in the Skagit Valley Chorale superspreading event," [46] and the research publication Risk Analysis, Sept. 26, 2020, "Consideration of the Aerosol Transmission for COVID‐19 and Public Health."[47]
Other work
From 2007–2008, Read was president of the Board of Directors of The International School, a Portland full-immersion language elementary school, where he served as a trustee for six years.[48]
References
- ^ "LA Times hires Read to be its Seattle reporter". 12 February 2019.
- ^ "The 1999 Pulitzer Prize Winners".
- ^ "Welcome to Storyline". The Washington Post.
- ^ "Arthur Hinton Read, 1922-1961".
- ^ Knight, Michael (January 1981). "Massachusetts told of wide corruption". The New York Times.
- ISBN 978-0-943184-17-3.
- ^ "Richard Read, The Oregonian". The Oregonian. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
- ^ "Eisenhower Fellowships 10/2005". Eisenhower Fellowships.
- ^ "Still behind the iron curtain".
- ^ "Many of The Oregonian's top staffers have applied for buyouts".
- ^ "Departing Oregonian reporter: if you write a story to win an award, you won't get one". 2 February 2023.
- ^ "NerdWallet hires Pulitzer winner Read, among others". 5 December 2016.
- ^ "Don't Trust These Companies With Your Student Debt". 23 March 2023.
- ^ "Muck Rack Richard Read".
- ^ "A choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have COVID-19 and two are dead". Los Angeles Times. 30 March 2020.
- ^ Tingley, Kim (8 April 2021). "All Together Now: How the Skagit Valley Chorale Learned to Sing Again Amid Covid". The New York Times.
- ^ "Scientists say WHO ignores the risk that coronavirus floats in air as aerosol". Los Angeles Times. 4 July 2020.
- ^ Anthes, Emily (8 April 2021). "Has the era of overzealous cleaning finally come to an end?". The New York Times.
- ^ "Richard Read". Los Angeles Times. 17 September 2020.
- ^ "AP garner 2 Pulitzer Prizes for pictures".
- ^ "The 1999 Pulitzer Prize Winners:Explanatory Reporting". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
- ^ "Foundation Announces National Journalism Awards Winners". Archived from the original on 2013-12-31.
- ^ "Times' Reporters land-swap series wins Blethen award".
- ^ "Willamette University Holds 145th Commencement". Willamette University. 2003-05-13. Retrieved 2012-12-30.
- ^ "The 2001 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Public Service". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
- ^ "The 1999 Pulitzer Prize Winners:Explanatory Reporting". Pulitzer.org. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
- ^ "2005 Society of Professional Journalists Pacific Northwest Excellence in Journalism" (PDF).
- ^ "The Oregonian wins 12 first-place awards in regional competition". 20 May 2012.
- ^ "2011 journalism contest results for newspapers, magazines, websites |".
- ^ "2012 Better Newspaper Contest :: Winning entry". Orenews.com. Retrieved 2012-12-30.
- ^ "WSJ, Reuters and NerdWallet among National Press Club award winners". 30 July 2018.
- ^ "The 'Dirt' on Organic Food: You May be Paying for Fakes". 12 July 2022.
- ^ "Costa Rica: Government accused of ignoring organic pineapple issue: Conventional pineapples are being exported as organic products". 8 March 2018.
- ISBN 978-0-8262-1768-4.
- ISBN 978-0-231-17028-4.
- ISBN 978-0-80713474-0.
Journalism's Roving Eye.
- ISBN 0-231-12240-3.
- ISBN 978-0-226-31814-1.
- ISBN 1400078695.
- ISBN 978-0742537774.
- ISBN 1-55728-728-7.
- ^ "A usable past: In 1980, the Ward Commission exposed a culture of corruption and brought about far-reaching reforms".
- ISBN 978-0-943184-17-3.
- ^ "Unknowable man". 12 February 2015.
- ^ "A choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have COVID-19 and two are dead". Los Angeles Times. 30 March 2020.
- PMID 32979298.
- PMID 32356927.
- ^ "The International School Fundraising Report, 2007" (PDF). The International School. June 2007. Retrieved May 20, 2010.