Loeb finalist hired by ProPublica to cover immigration

ProPublica announced Monday that Hannah Dreier, who is currently a Gerald Loeb Award finalist, will join its staff as a reporter covering immigration.

She will start on July 10.

Dreier has been the Venezuela correspondent for the Associated Press for the past three years. She moved to Caracas in 2014 amid a bloody nationwide protest movement, and has told the story of the once oil-rich country’s unraveling from inside prisons, hospitals and factories.

Her 2016 “Venezuela Undone” series – which illuminated Venezuela’s social and economic collapse through deeply reported accounts of ordinary citizens struggling to survive – was recognized by the Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest, the Michael Kelly Award, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. And it’s currently a Loeb finalist.

“Hannah is an indefatigable reporter and a natural fit for covering an issue as important and emotional as immigration – locally, nationally and globally,” said Robin Fields, ProPublica’s managing editor, in a statement. “Our readers will benefit greatly from her talent for revelatory stories, engaging writing and original analysis.”

Dreier joined AP as a politics reporter in the Sacramento bureau and later covered the business of gambling from Las Vegas. She previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News. A winner of the James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism, Dreier has also been honored with reporting prizes from the Overseas Press Club, the National Headliner Awards, Society of Professional Journalists and the California Newspaper Publishers Association.