Pulitzer, Loeb winner Mendoza departs AP

Martha Mendoza, a two-time Pulitzer Prize and Emmy-winning journalist, has accepted a buyout from the Associated Press after 30 years.

In 2016, she was part of an AP team that won a Loeb Award for  “Seafood from Slaves,” which also won a Pulitzer. The international investigation of the fishing industry in Southeast Asia freed more than 2,000 slaves and traced the seafood they caught to supermarkets and pet food providers across the United States.

The reporters put themselves at personal risk as they investigated. They were chased by company officials threatening to ram them with their speedboat after fishermen aboard a trawler begged for their help. For four days, they hid in the back of a truck to log the names of ships loaded with tainted seafood, hiding from gunmen from the fish mafia.

The stories also won the Overseas Press Club award for business journalism, as well as USC Annenberg’s 2016 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting.

Mendoza was a 2001 Knight Fellow at Stanford University and a 2007 Ferris Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.

Mendoza says she will focus on investigative projects she is most passionate about, as well as teaching and training opportunities