Mara Ellison

Profile

Investigative journalist with 11 years covering criminal justice, municipal corruption, and public policy for regional and national outlets. Specializes in data-driven long-form narratives and FOIA-based document analysis, with two stories contributing to statewide legislative reform. Published in The Tribune Record, ProPublica Illinois, and The Atlantic.

Work Experience

Senior Investigative ReporterMar 2019 - Present

The Tribune Record, Chicago, IL

Led a 14-month investigation into Chicago Housing Authority contract fraud, producing a 6-part series that drew 2.1 million unique readers and prompted a $38M audit by the Illinois Inspector General.
Built and maintained a network of 60+ confidential sources across law enforcement, city hall, and nonprofit sectors, reducing average source-verification time by 30%.
Mentored 3 junior reporters on data journalism techniques including SQL querying and QGIS mapping, cutting team turnaround on data-heavy stories from 3 weeks to 9 days.

Staff Reporter, Criminal Justice DeskJun 2015 - Feb 2019

Midwest Courier News, Indianapolis, IN

Broke a story on prosecutorial misconduct in Marion County that resulted in 4 exonerations and was cited in an ACLU federal filing, earning the 2018 Indiana Press Club Award for Public Service.
Filed 220+ FOIA requests over 4 years with an 84% document-release success rate, building a reusable request template library adopted across the newsroom.
Grew personal beat newsletter from 0 to 18,400 subscribers in 18 months by packaging court-document summaries into a weekly digest format.

General Assignment ReporterAug 2013 - May 2015

River City Daily, Evansville, IN

Produced 5–7 stories per week across education, local government, and crime beats while maintaining a 98% on-deadline record over 22 months.
Developed a community sources database of 300+ contacts that reduced cold-call reporting time by 40% and was adopted as a newsroom standard.
Shot and edited accompanying video for 35 web stories, increasing average time-on-page by 52% compared to text-only articles.

Skills

FOIA litigation and document analysisData journalism (SQL, Excel, QGIS)Investigative reporting methodologyAP Style and long-form narrative writingAudio/video production (Adobe Premiere, Audacity)Source cultivation and confidential-source managementContent management systems (WordPress, Arc Publishing)Social media verification (InVID, TinEye, Bellingcat OSINT)SEO writing and audience analytics (Chartbeat, Google Analytics)

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