Ziva Branstetter

About Ziva Branstetter

For the past three years, I\'ve led a team of national investigative reporters at ProPublica. My most recent project is our “Life of the Mother” investigation into the impact of state abortion bans, which was honored with the Pulitzer Prize in May 2025. Our investigation documented the deaths of five pregnant women who couldn’t access emergency reproductive care and told the story of a Tennessee woman\'s struggle to survive after she was denied an abortion. I also led a groundbreaking collaborative investigation that exposed how one of the world\'s largest medical device makers kept complaints about its dangerous breathing machines secret from the FDA and the public. The investigation into Philips\' CPAP machines ended with an agreement by the company with federal regulators to cease all U.S. sales of the machines. Investigations I\'ve edited and managed during my career have won or been named a finalist for more than 15 national and international awards including the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Worth Bingham Prize, three George Polk Awards, two Scripps Howard awards, two Overseas Press Club awards and an American Society of Magazine Editors award. Before joining ProPublica, I supervised a team of reporters focused on corporate accountability at The Washington Post. I was the lead editor on The Post\'s Pandora Papers project, the largest journalism collaboration in history. Our investigation with ICIJ into tax havens in the U.S. and abroad prompted widespread reforms. At The Post, I also led investigations into President Trump\'s business practices, cocoa companies\' use of child labor in West Africa, companies whose products killed and maimed children and the failure of the federal government to protect nursing home patients during the pandemic. I was previously a senior editor at Reveal, where investigations I led exposed abuses by Tesla and other Silicon Valley companies. In 2015, I founded The Frontier, an investigative, nonprofit newsroom in Oklahoma that has since doubled in size. Before that, I spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor at the Tulsa World. After I witnessed a botched execution in 2014, my reporting partner and I investigated Oklahoma\'s flawed death penalty system and were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting (2015). I\'ve served three terms on the board of Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. and am a frequent IRE speaker and trainer. I\'m a longtime mentor to numerous early and mid-career journalists. The best way to contact me is to via email: z••••••••@gmail.com

Experience

1. Senior Editor

   ProPublica

   Apr 2022 — Present · New York, NY, US

   I lead an investigative team focused on national issues at ProPublica. Investigations I\'ve led have resulted in new laws and rules to expand abortion access and a nationwide recognition that abortion bans have led to delays in emergency care and deaths of pregnant women. I\'ve supervised work that prompted a nationwide end to sales of dangerous CPAP machines and exposed a new junk police science that resulted in false convictions. My team\'s project with ICIJ detailing how a little-known network of volunteer diplomats abused their positions launched criminal probes and legal reforms in multiple countries.

Education

• Oklahoma State University

  Bachelor of Science - BS, News-Editorial

• Oklahoma State University

  Bachelor of Science - BS, Journalism

• Oklahoma State University

  BA, Journalism

  1983 — 1987