Howard Center executive director Mark Greenblatt

Decorated investigative journalist Mark Greenblatt named new executive editor at ASU’s Howard Center 

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

  

Mark Greenblatt, an award-winning investigative journalist for Scripps News, will take over as executive editor of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Greenblatt succeeds Maud Beelman, the former Associated Press investigations editor who has served as the Howard Center’s founding executive editor since 2019.

“The Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at ASU has achieved a great deal under the leadership of Maud Beelman. We are now ready to write the next chapters in the history of this wonderful program,” said Cronkite School Dean Battinto L. Batts Jr. “Mark Greenblatt is an accomplished investigative journalist, who is committed to the craft and has a passion for developing future leaders. We are excited that Mark is joining Cronkite Nation and look forward to where he will take the Howard Center.”

Named in honor of news pioneer and media executive Roy W. Howard, the Howard Center produces investigative projects that have been published by The Associated Press, USA Today, PBS NewsHour, The Houston Chronicle, The Arizona Republic, Inside Climate News and others. 

The Howard Center’s training and education provides a ground-breaking, hands-on experience, in which students learn how to produce deeply researched watchdog journalism that professional partners want to share with their audiences. The student-produced journalism has won major awards, including prizes from Investigative Reporters & Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Through his investigative reporting, Greenblatt has garnered multiple awards and promoted changes in laws and institutional reforms while serving as the senior national investigative correspondent and coordinator of specialized reporting at Scripps News, based in Washington, D.C.

He has won three Peabody awards, the duPont-Columbia Award, the IRE Medal, the Livingston Award, multiple national Edward R. Murrow Awards, the national Emmy for investigative reporting and has twice been named a finalist for Harvard’s Goldsmith Prize.

“Over the last decade, Mark has led multiple award-winning projects for Scripps. His reports have led to changes in laws at many levels of government,” said Kate O’Brian, president of Scripps News. “We value the work Mark has done at Scripps and are looking forward to collaborating with him and his team in this new role at the Cronkite School of Journalism.”

Greenblatt previously served as a national correspondent for ABC News and in investigative reporter roles for KHOU in Houston, WBBH in Fort Myers and Naples, Florida, and KOAA in Pueblo and Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“I am deeply honored to join the Howard Center, which Cronkite’s world-class faculty built into an energized and leading incubator for investigative journalism’s future leaders,” Greenblatt said. “My incredible mission every day will be to create new and inspired opportunities for students seeking to reveal injustice and bring light to the world through fair, accurate and impactful accountability journalism that honors Roy Howard’s legacy.”

The Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism at the Cronkite School and at the University of Maryland are made possible by the Scripps Howard Fund, which supports philanthropic causes important to The E.W. Scripps Company and the communities it serves, with a special emphasis on excellence in journalism.

About the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The Cronkite School is widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier professional journalism programs. Cronkite champions a “teaching hospital” model of journalism education in which students create professional content under the guidance of top professionals. Cronkite News, the student-powered, faculty-led news division of Arizona PBS with news bureaus in Phoenix, Washington and Los Angeles, produces a daily newscast for the station. Cronkite emphasizes programs that experiment with new forms of in-depth information gathering, storytelling, audience engagement, digital interactivity and revenue models.

About the Scripps Howard Foundation
The Scripps Howard Foundation supports philanthropic causes important to The E.W. Scripps Company and the communities it serves, with a special emphasis on excellence in journalism. At the crossroads of the classroom and the newsroom, the Foundation is a leader in supporting journalism education, scholarships, internships, minority recruitment and development, literacy and First Amendment causes. The Scripps Howard Awards stand as one of the industry’s top honors for outstanding journalism. The Foundation improves lives and helps build thriving communities. It partners with Scripps’ brands to create awareness of local issues and supports impactful organizations to drive solutions.

About the Scripps Howard Fund
The Scripps Howard Fund is a public charity that supports philanthropic causes important to The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP) and the communities it serves, with a special emphasis on journalism education, excellence in journalism and childhood literacy. At the crossroads of the classroom and the newsroom, the Fund is a leader in supporting journalism through scholarships, internships, minority recruitment and development and First Amendment causes. The Scripps Howard Awards stand as one of the industry’s top honors for outstanding journalism, and the Fund’s annual “If You Give a Child a Book …” childhood literacy campaign has distributed thousands of new books to children in need across the nation. In support of its mission to create a better-informed world, the Fund also partners with Scripps brands to create awareness of local issues and support organizations that help build thriving communities.The Scripps Howard Foundation, an affiliated organization with the Scripps Howard Fund, supports Scripps’ charitable efforts through its endowment, key assets and major donations.