ProPublica has hired three reporters — Caroline O’Donovan, Ben Foldy and Kendall Taggart — to join the new business desk.
The team, led by assistant managing editor Jesse Eisinger and Senior Editor Jake Swearingen, will pursue accountability journalism focused on corporate power, financial crimes and the ways business decisions shape everyday life.
O’Donovan starts on June 15, Foldy starts on July 1 and Taggart starts on Sept. 1.
“There’s never been more money moving with less scrutiny than right now,” Swearingen said. “Caroline, Ben and Kendall have spent their careers getting inside companies that didn’t want them there. We couldn’t be happier they’re going to be doing it for us now.”
O’Donovan joins ProPublica following more than a decade of accountability reporting in Silicon Valley. Most recently, she covered the artificial intelligence boom at The San Francisco Standard, examining how AI is reshaping and being shaped by the tech industry’s capital city.
Before that, O’Donovan was a tech reporter at The Washington Post, where she covered Amazon’s workplace safety violations, legal attacks on regulators, exploitation of the U.S. Postal Service and the patient-safety risks posed by its growing healthcare business. She also contributed to a SABEW Best in Business Award finalist project on the AI industry’s energy demands and temporarily served as a Midwest correspondent covering immigration, housing and religion in Minneapolis and Kansas City.
Earlier in her career, O’Donovan covered tech and labor issues at BuzzFeed News, where her reporting revealed how much Uber drivers actually earn and exposed safety concerns at a Blue Apron factory. She won a SABEW award for an investigation into Amazon’s dangerous network of third-party delivery contractors. She has also covered the media business for the Nieman Journalism Lab and contributed reporting to Chicago’s WBEZ.
“Holding the rich and powerful accountable from Silicon Valley to Wall Street is such an important use of ProPublica’s resources and incredible reporting talent, and I could not be more excited to be part of the team,” O’Donovan said.
Foldy is an investigative reporter specializing in finance, business and power. He comes to ProPublica after seven years at The Wall Street Journal, where he investigated a wide range of subjects — including the unregulated world of surrogacy, billionaire sanctions evasion, cryptocurrency and the 2023 banking crisis. He also reported and hosted a season of “Bad Bets,” the publication’s financial crime podcast.
Foldy is a two-time Gerald Loeb Award finalist, and his reporting has earned recognition from the New York and National Press Clubs. He is currently working on a book about Hindenburg Research and its impact as an investigative short-selling firm.
“I’m thrilled and honored to join the team at ProPublica, whose work has inspired me throughout my career. I can think of nowhere better to be covering the way capital and power are shaping our lives and can’t wait to get to work,” Foldy said.
Taggart joins ProPublica after stints as an investigative reporter at Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed News and the Center for Investigative Reporting, where she covered health, criminal justice, private equity and corporate misconduct.
In 2024, Taggart was part of a Bloomberg News team honored with a Gerald Loeb Award for reporting on pharmaceutical companies that circulated dangerous drugs around the world. The series prompted drug recalls and led prosecutors to reopen a stalled investigation into the deaths of several children who had been given contaminated cancer drugs.
