Ziva Branstetter
Ziva Branstetter is a senior editor at ProPublica, supervising a team of national reporters. She previously worked at The Washington Post, founded a startup and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
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Ziva Branstetter has been a senior editor at ProPublica since March 2022, supervising a team of national investigative reporters.
She previously served as corporate accountability editor at The Washington Post. She led projects there including the Post’s award-winning Pandora Papers collaboration with ICIJ and journalists around the world.
Branstetter also worked as an editor at Reveal and co-founded The Frontier, an investigative newsroom in Oklahoma. Before that, she spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor at the Tulsa World.
She has reported and edited investigations that resulted in the indictment of a seven-term sheriff, the dismissal of an entire state board, criminal charges against a state lawmaker, exonerations of wrongfully convicted people and new laws to prevent labor abuses and offshore tax evasion.
Her investigation into Oklahoma’s flawed death penalty process was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. Work she has edited has also received awards from IRE, the Overseas Press Club, Scripps Howard and the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Branstetter served three terms on the board of Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. She and her husband, who live in Oklahoma, have two adult sons and one grandson.
The CDC Hasn’t Asked States to Track Deaths Linked to Abortion Bans
The Biden administration hasn’t delivered on its goals of measuring the public health impact of abortion bans. Experts say it’s a missed opportunity to study how the laws may lead to deaths and long-term injuries.
Lawmakers in at Least Seven States Seek Expanded Abortion Access
Some of the bills were filed in direct response to ProPublica’s reporting on the fatal consequences of abortion bans.
Report: Hospitals Rarely Advise Doctors on How to Treat Patients Under Abortion Bans
Doctors described hospital lawyers who “refused to meet” with them for months, were hard to reach during “life or death” situations and offered little help beyond “regurgitating” the law, according to a Senate Finance Committee report.
Are Abortion Bans Across America Causing Deaths? The States That Passed Them Are Doing Little to Find Out.
The same political leaders who enacted abortion bans oversee the state committees that review maternal deaths. These committees haven’t tracked the laws’ impacts, and most haven’t finished examining cases from the year the bans went into effect.
Georgia Dismissed All Members of Maternal Mortality Committee After ProPublica Obtained Internal Details of Two Deaths
In a letter, the state’s public health commissioner said the action was taken because “confidential information provided to the Maternal Mortality Review Committee was inappropriately shared with outside individuals.”
Texas Lawmakers Push for New Exceptions to State’s Strict Abortion Ban After the Deaths of Two Women
The new legislation, prompted by ProPublica’s reporting, comes after 111 Texas doctors signed a public letter urging that the ban be changed because it “does not allow us as medical professionals to do our jobs.”
Georgia Judge Lifts Six-Week Abortion Ban After Deaths of Two Women Who Couldn’t Access Care
Abortion clinics rushed to provide care after a judge rejected the state’s ban, an order that could soon be paused by a higher court. It’s only the latest development since ProPublica reported the deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.
Did a Georgia Hospital Break Federal Law When It Failed to Save Amber Thurman? A Senate Committee Chair Wants Answers.
Thurman died after waiting 20 hours for emergency care under the state’s abortion ban. Sen. Ron Wyden demanded records his committee could review to determine whether the hospital violated the law. “It’s not even a question,” one expert said.
How Do Abortion Pills Work? Answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
The FDA says abortion pills are safe if taken as directed. Here’s what patients should expect.
How Abortion Bans Are Impacting Pregnant Patients Across the Country
Leading legal scholar Mary Ziegler and Tennessee OB-GYN Dr. Nikki Zite talk to ProPublica about ominous trends and threats to patients’ lives posed by increasingly strict abortion bans.
Richard Glossip Has Eaten Three Last Meals on Death Row. Years Later, the State Is Still Trying to Execute Him.
An upcoming execution in Oklahoma draws surprising critics in the deeply red state: pro-death-penalty lawmakers who believe the state may execute an innocent man.