ProPublica editor-in-chief Steven Engleberg and managing editor Tracy Weber sent out the following to the staff:
It is our great pleasure to announce that we are promoting Jesse Eisinger, veteran reporter and editor, to assistant managing editor. In his new role, Eisinger will build and oversee a new team devoted to business investigations — a focus that, in the current environment of historic wealth and unfettered growth in crypto, AI and tech, has perhaps never been more crucial. He will also continue to guide the democracy team that has contributed so much to our coverage of government institutions and the current administration, as well as help guide our overall strategies in these areas.
Jesse joined ProPublica in 2009 and was the first reporter specifically hired for his skills in covering business. He came to us from Condé Nast, having previously worked as a columnist and reporter for The Wall Street Journal. In choosing ProPublica, he turned down offers from more established business publications to reunite with Paul Steiger, our founding editor and the longtime leader of The Wall Street Journal’s first-in-class coverage of business and economics.
Jesse likes to say he’s not really an investigative reporter, but his career at ProPublica says otherwise. His first major story for us began with a vague tip about hedge funds that managed to profit from the 2008 financial meltdown. Asked how he could pursue such a broad subject, one of his editors helpfully pointed toward Wall Street and said, “It’s over there … somewhere.” The resulting Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation ultimately focused on Magnetar, a hedge fund that made billions of dollars by betting against the risky securities it created.
Jesse and reporter Paul Kiel later turned their attention to the IRS, writing a series of powerful investigative stories that highlighted the fundamental unfairness of how the IRS enforces our tax code. A few years later, Eisinger obtained the tax returns of the richest Americans, and the resulting series of stories by a team of reporters stands as the most detailed, evidence-based look at the techniques the ultrawealthy use to legally pay relatively low, if any, taxes on their financial gains.
Then, of course, there was Jesse’s inspired, steady leadership of our Supreme Court reporting that began with Clarence Thomas and broadened to encompass the federal courts’ failure to oversee conflicts of interest. Those stories won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for public service and were widely recognized for their exceptional investigative rigor and compelling narrative.
Jesse has built a well-earned reputation for asking tough questions and challenging conventional wisdom in his reporting. In his expanded leadership role at ProPublica, he will continue to push us to dig deeper and think critically.
