inewsource is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to improving lives in the San Diego region and beyond through impactful, data-based investigative and accountability journalism.

inewsource is a model for nonprofit accountability journalism. As San Diego County’s source for investigative journalism, its high-impact, data-based work often has national impact and earns national honors, and its unique partnership with local public media and commercial television means its work reaches those who are most affected.

With support from the American Journalism Project, inewsource is building a leadership team to support expansion beyond San Diego into Imperial County and increased reporting for the diverse communities of Southern California.

  • Lorie Hearn is the chief executive officer and editor of inewsource. She founded inewsource in the summer of 2009, following a successful reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Lorie personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters.
  • Mark J. Rochester began as inewsource managing editor in April 2021, having served as editor-in-chief at Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative newsroom in Manhattan. He was previously senior news director for investigations at the Detroit Free Press. Both newsrooms, he notes, shared a commitment to diversity and inclusion, and their investigative journalism often received national recognition for exposing problems impacting communities of color.