Kessler leaving NYTimes for Scripps’ DC bureau

Aaron Kessler, who has covered the auto industry and regulation for The New York Times, is leaving for a job on the national investigative team at the Scripps Washington Bureau.

In the new job, Kessler will be focused on longer-term projects involving both government and the business world.

“The corporate world is increasingly using “big data” to do its business, measure performance and assess risk. This will be a unique opportunity with Scripps to focus on harnessing such data and digital forensics as a journalist, to investigate companies and their activities. I’m very much looking forward to the new adventure,” said Kessler in an email to Talking Biz News.

Kessler has also been a staff writer for 100Reporters, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, and he worked at the Detroit Free-Press in its Washington bureau focused on autos.

He previously worked at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune covering the housing market. Kessler was honored by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and UCLA’s Gerald Loeb business awards for his extensive investigation of tainted Chinese drywall, tracking its shipment into the United States and its spread across the country. This stuff contains gases that cause it to corrode metals and cause equipment like air-conditioners in brand-new homes to fail.

He has a master’s from the University of Missouri and bachelor’s from Washington University in St. Louis. He’s been a trainer and speaker at national IRE conferences, and was deputy director of the Virginia Public Access Project, managing a campaign finance database and developing stories for a consortium of news outlets.