Zapotosky named deputy metro editor at Washington Post

Washington Post Executive Local Editor Jamie Stockwell:

Matt will have responsibility for lines of coverage including criminal justice and breaking news, while Maria, a creative, sharp and unflappable leader, will oversee local politics and local education, among other coverage areas. Both will also shepherd key strategic initiatives in the department in partnership with me, which we will detail in coming weeks.

Matt first came to The Post in 2007 as a summer intern in the Southern Maryland bureau. He returned a year later to cover cops and courts in Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s counties, and later moved to covering cops and courts in Prince George’s County. In 2013, he took over as the beat reporter in the federal courthouse in the Eastern District of Virginia, where he notably scooped a teenager’s successful bid to help his friend join the Islamic State and chronicled, with Roz Helderman, the public corruption trial of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in one of The Post’s first ever LUFs. (Back then, it was called a liveblog.)

Matt moved to covering the Justice Department in 2016, where he produced multiple scoops on the end of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. He left his own bachelor party to rush to cover the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where a gunman shot and killed 49 people. He was a key member of the Post team that reported on the investigation of possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, a topic that dominated much of his reporting for the following years. Later, with Jackie Alemany, Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey and others, he produced several scoops on the Justice Department’s investigation of Trump’s storage of highly classified records at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Matt has conducted deep investigations, such as a 2017 examination of sexual misconduct claims against a prominent federal judge. His reporting forced the judge to step down and sparked broad judicial branch reforms. When Matt called the Justice Department in 2021 to ask why authorities, acting in conjunction with the DEA, had seized $87,000 from a former Marine on the side of a highway without charging him, officials said they would give the man his money back.

He returned to Metro two years ago as an editor, a role in which he has led some of the desk’s most important and impactful work – including Emily Davies’ and Peter Hermann’s relentless coverage of rising homicides and Justin Jouvenal and Hannah Natanson’s investigation of failings that led to a six-year-old shooting his teacher at a Virginia elementary school. He is particularly proud of the work that held local leaders to account, like Emily’s deep-dive on a city program that purported to help at-risk people but was marred by missteps.