NY Times hires Valentino-DeVries to cover tech for I team

New York Times deputy investigations editor Gabriel Dance sent out the following announcement on Wednesday:

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, a reporter most recently with ProPublica, is joining Investigations to report on technology, social media platforms and artificial intelligence.

Before ProPublica, Jennifer worked at The Wall Street Journal for more than a decade, as an interactive producer, reporter and member of the investigative team. Her reporting has focused on technology, privacy, computer security and the law.

At The Journal, Jennifer uncovered law enforcement use of cellphone-tracking devices known as stingrays and revealed how online companies were showing different prices and offers to different shoppers. She was a key reporter behind the Journal’s long-running series on digital privacy, “What They Know,” which won a Gerald Loeb award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2012. She shared an Overseas Press Club award for coverage of companies that enable censorship and surveillance by repressive regimes.

After leaving The Journal at the end of 2016, Jennifer helped launch the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. More recently, she has reported on Facebook for ProPublica.

Jennifer is originally from Texas, where she owned two pet prairie dogs, Edward R. Burrow and Drew Burymore. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin and was managing editor of the student newspaper, The Daily Texan. Her first journalism job was on the copy desk of The Houston Chronicle.

She has a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton and once covered an elephant soccer game in Bangkok as an intern for The Associated Press.

— Gabriel