Rebecca Ellis joins The Times to cover L.A. County government

The following announcement was sent on behalf of Deputy Managing Editor Hector Becerra and Assistant Managing Editor Steve Clow:

We’re pleased to announce that Rebecca Ellis has joined the Los Angeles Times to cover Los Angeles County government.

Ellis previously worked at Oregon Public Broadcasting, where she reported on city politics, housing, homelessness, policing and other topics for radio and the web. She has also worked at National Public Radio as a Kroc fellow and at the Miami Herald. She was a Livingston Award finalist in 2022 for her three-part investigation into abuses within Oregon’s private security industry.

Since joining the staff, Ellis has written at length about the county’s troubled probation department, as well as the massive and complex budget — including the stunning disclosure that the county could face multibillion-dollar liability from sexual abuse cases.

Ellis also picked up on the dramatic surge in ATM theft on the days when benefits for low-income county residents arrive on their debit cards. Early one morning, on a hunch, she went to an ATM where such thefts had occurred. Moments after she arrived, local and federal authorities swooped in and arrested two men suspected of running a scam. The officers and agents were surprised to see a reporter on the scene at 6 a.m. in Tarzana. The story ran on Page One.

Ellis grew up in New York City and graduated from Brown University. A native New Yorker, she’s learning to navigate California’s love affair with cars and not crash in the process.