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
Department of Veterans Affairs is appealing a judge’s order to build more than 2,500 housing units and that invalidated land leases to UCLA and a private school.
Oct. 25, 2024
A federal judge has ordered the parking lot of UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium to be turned into temporary housing for veterans on the VA campus in West L.A.
Oct. 21, 2024
Experts say a new $22-billion plan to end homelessness in the city of Los Angeles reveals decades of underfunding and pitfalls of leaders’ current approach.
Oct. 16, 2024
The developers contracted to build housing on the VA’s West Los Angeles campus have said veterans have no interest in a hotel being built on the property, but leaked results of an internal survey show a large majority do.
Oct. 16, 2024
In a new poll, Measure A, a proposal on the November ballot that would double Los Angeles County’s quarter-percent homeless sales tax, is leading 49% in favor to 33% opposed, 1 percentage point behind the the majority it needs to pass.
Oct. 7, 2024
This November, voters will decide whether to approve Measure A, a half-cent sales tax that would remain in effect indefinitely to fund programs for the unhoused.
Oct. 3, 2024
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to temporarily block access to UCLA’s Jackie Robinson baseball stadium.
Sept. 26, 2024
Sept. 24, 2024
A ‘Town Center’ is a must for thousands of veterans who will one day live on the VA’s 388-acre West Los Angeles campus. But there is scant agreement on what that entails: hundreds of housing units, or retail and social center for vets living far and wide.
Sept. 24, 2024
A ballot measure that would mandate “a new approach to expand programs that are proven to prevent homelessness and increase housing affordability” is a sales tax increase. But you wouldn’t know it from a flier arriving in mailboxes around the county.
Sept. 16, 2024