Senior writer Doug Smith scouts Los Angeles for the ragged edges where public policy meets real people, combining data analysis and gumshoe reporting to tell L.A. stories through his more than 50 years of experience covering the city. As past database editor from 2004 through 2015, he hunted down and analyzed data for news and investigative projects. Besides “Grading the Teachers,” he contributed to investigations of construction abuse in the community college system and the rising toll of prescription drug overdoses. Smith has been at The Times since 1970, covering local and state government, criminal justice, politics and education. He was the lead writer for Times’ coverage of the infamous North Hollywood shootout, winner of a 1997 Pulitzer Prize. Between 2005 and 2008, Smith made five trips to Iraq on loan to our foreign desk.
Latest From This Author
The 2024 homeless count found the number of people living on Los Angeles city and county streets declined after five years of increases.
June 28, 2024
Slow reimbursement of government contracts forces a South Los Angeles home for ex-prisoners to bleed interest to predatory lenders. A small nonprofit proposes to close the payment gap with no-interest loans.
June 24, 2024
As head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, Va Lecia Adams Kellum has the daunting challenge of uniting a fractured network of service providers.
June 23, 2024
Bob Zaugh was one of many young men who resisted the U.S. military draft during the Vietnam War. How a tough federal judge handled his case changed both of their lives.
June 14, 2024
Step Up on Second, a homeless housing and services provider, received $2.7 million in future “profit” from the developer of seven state-funded Project Homekey motel conversions, court records say.
June 7, 2024
The Weingart Center Assn. will soon begin placing homeless people in a 278-unit tower, part of a project it hopes will change the skyline and ambience of Skid Row.
June 5, 2024
Former Los Angeles Angels’ infielder David Fletcher may have made bets with the same bookie used by baseball star Shohei Ohtani’s ex-interpreter, ESPN has reported.
May 18, 2024
A former San Diego sheriff’s deputy who has already pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for the 2020 fatal shooting of an unarmed suspect has been indicted on two federal charges that could put him in prison for life.
May 18, 2024
Two federal lawsuits challenging the homelessness practices of Los Angeles city and county and the U.S. government have allowed U.S. District Judge David O. Carter to assume powers that make him as close as it gets to the ever wished-for homelessness czar.
May 17, 2024
A study of the state program that provided private hotel and motel rooms for homeless people during the COVID pandemic found it improved healthcare for thousands.
May 8, 2024