Zach Despart is an investigative reporter at ProPublica, where he covers Texas.
Previously, he was an enterprise and politics reporter at the Texas Tribune. He reported extensively on the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, collaborating with ProPublica and the Washington Post, including a groundbreaking investigation on the role the gunman’s rifle played in the disastrous police response. For that work his team were named Pulitzer Prize finalists and winners of the Collier Prize.
After beginning his career in Vermont, he moved to Texas in 2016. At the Houston Chronicle, he covered government and politics, where his work revealed the death toll from the Texas blackout crisis was far higher than initially reported and how missed warning signs led to the Astroworld Festival disaster. His investigation on how Texas diverted Hurricane Harvey aid away from areas most at risk for storms sparked a federal investigation.
He is interested in deeply reported stories that marry narrative storytelling with data, especially on the topics of corruption, threats to democracy, campaign finance, emergency planning and government recovery programs.
The latest
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Is Outsourcing More of His Office’s Work to Costly Private Lawyers
Despite having an office with hundreds of attorneys, Ken Paxton frequently opts to hire private lawyers. One cost taxpayers more than $24,000 in one day.