Sosa joins LA Times as California local news fellow

The following excerpt was sent out on behalf of the Los Angeles Times’ assistant managing editor Angel Jennings and Sacramento bureau chief Laurel Rosenhall:

We’re excited to announce Anabel Sosa has returned to the Los Angeles Times as its inaugural California Local News fellow. She has joined the Sacramento bureau covering state politics and policy.

This is Sosa’s second stint covering the statehouse. As a summer intern in 2022, she reported on the labor shortage that hit local swimming pools and a state law that would allow “human composting” of the deceased. She also wrote stories that humanized bills to seal criminal records of non-repeat offenders and those who received harsher sentences due to tough crime laws.

“I strive to tell stories about the ways in which policy and government profoundly shape our livelihoods,” Sosa said. “I’ve always been drawn to the institutions at play in the U.S. and abroad, and am humbled to be able to write about some of these core issues.”

Her passion for storytelling began while working as a video editor for a private investigator. There, she helped to put together visual testimonies for individuals from underserved communities who were facing criminal charges. She later went on to cover courts and cops from her hometown.

Sosa holds a degree in political science from the University of Vermont and recently graduated with a master’s from UC Berkeley, where she specialized in investigative and narrative journalism. At Berkeley’s Human Rights Center, she worked on open-source investigations, including stories on birth control misinformation and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Her work has been featured in CalMatters, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, the New York Post and the New York Times.