Reuters hires reporter for investigations team

John Shiffman, most recently an investigative reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, will be joining Reuters as a member of the news agency’s expanding investigations team.

Shiffman, who began his journalism career as an intern in the Reuters Washington bureau, has covered the federal courts and worked as an investigative reporter for the Inquirer since 2003. There, he earned a reputation as a meticulous reporter and gifted storyteller.

He was the lead writer on an investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2009. The series documented how the EPA bowed to White House pressure on pollution control, putting politics over science and threatening the health of millions of Americans. Shiffman also has written extensively about the death penalty, public corruption, domestic terrorism and art crime.

At the Inquirer, he wrote two narrative serials, one recounting the Drug Enforcement Administration’s first major black-market Internet pharmacy investigation, the other tracing an audacious Homeland Security sting against an Iranian arms dealer. The latter is being expanded into a book, to be published next year.

Before joining the Inquirer, John worked for The Nashville Tennessean and The Fort Myers News-Press. He is a lawyer, was associate director of the White House Fellows program, and last year co-authored a best-selling book with an FBI agent.

He starts Dec. 19, and he’ll be based in Washington, reporting to investigative projects editor Blake Morrison.