ProPublica hires Gillum to cover tech

ProPublica announced Tuesday that Jack Gillum is joining its staff as a senior reporter covering technology and the ways algorithms, big data and social media platforms impact civil rights.

He starts on July 30.

Gillum comes to ProPublica from The Washington Post, where he was part of the investigative team for the past year digging into topics ranging from mismanaged taxpayer funds to troubled relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

Prior to the Post, Gillum was a reporter in the D.C. investigative unit at The Associated Press. During his six years there, he broke stories on the existence and location of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, as well as a secretive, U.S.-backed “Cuban Twitter” program that mined subscriber data for political purposes. He was also the recipient of the John L. Dougherty Award for exemplary work by an AP staff member under the age of 30.

Gillum began his career as a business reporter and database specialist at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, his hometown, covering technology and aerospace firms.

Later as a database editor for USA Today, Gillum helped expose rampant cheating in D.C.’s public school system under then-chancellor Michelle Rhee for the paper’s “Testing the System” series, which won an Education Writers Association Award.

“Time and again, Jack has proven to be a formidable reporter with the tenacity and skill set to do some of the industry’s most ambitious journalism,” said ProPublica managing editor Robin Fields in a statement. “We’re confident he’ll be a great addition to our newsroom as we advance our coverage of technology and its impact on our lives.”