UIUC Alum wins Pulitzer for reporting on lead poisoning
Rebecca Woolington (left) and her Tampa Bay Times colleagues Corey G. Johnson (center) and Eli Murray won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting. Tampa Bay Times
Eli Murray grew up in rural Illinois, attended Sauk Valley Community College, and in 2015 earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Soon after, he joined the Tampa Bay Times. This year, Eli and his fellow Tampa Bay Times investigative reporters Corey Johnson and Rebecca Woolington, won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. It was for a six-part series called “Poisoned,” and it revealed severe lead poisoning among hundreds of workers at Gopher Resource in Tampa, a facility that extracts lead from used car batteries, melts and molds it into metal blocks stamped with the company’s logo, and resells it for profit.
Guest:
Eli Murray
Investigative Reporter, Tampa Bay Times