Alexandra Berzon

Alexandra Berzon is an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering Las Vegas, Nevada. She is best known for a 2008 series of investigative stories about the deaths of construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip for which the Las Vegas Sun won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and The Hillman Prize.

Alexandra Berzon
Born
Alexandra Eve Berzon

1980
Berkeley, California
StatusSingle
EducationBerkeley High School (1997);
Vassar College (2001);
UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (master’s in journalism) (2006)
OccupationReporter
Notable credit(s)
Las Vegas Sun and The Wall Street Journal
Spouse(s)N/A
Childrennone
FamilyMarsha S. Berzon (mother); Stephen P. Berzon (father); Jeremy Dashuta Berzon

The Public Service Pulitzer cited "the courageous reporting by Alexandra Berzon, for the exposure of the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip amid lax enforcement of regulations, leading to changes in policy and improved safety conditions."[1] The centerpiece was a four-part series entitled "Construction Deaths".[2] Berzon began her investigation after nine construction workers died in eight separate accidents.[3] Her series exposed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's lax enforcement of regulations and highlighted the cozy relationship between safety regulators and builders.[4]

The series was cited in Congressional hearings examining OSHA's record[5] and led to changes in policy and improved safety conditions.[1]

Life

Before the Sun, Berzon was a reporter for Red Herring, a business and technology magazine, and worked for the Anchorage Daily News and San Antonio Express-News. She has also reported for Salon.com, NPR, and American Public Media's American RadioWorks. Her coverage of South Pacific islanders who had emigrated to New Zealand due to fears of sea level rise was part of series[6] that won the George Polk Award for Radio Reporting in 2007.[7]

Berzon grew up in Berkeley, California and was graduated from Berkeley High School in 1997, then Vassar College in 2001. She then earned a master’s in journalism from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2006. Her mother, Marsha S. Berzon, is a circuit judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Awards

In addition to the Pulitzer for Public Service,[1] Berzon has won Story of the Year, News Feature of the Year, and the First Amendment Award from the Nevada Press Association.[8] She was also part of a team of The Wall Street Journal journalists that won the Gerald Loeb Award for Large Newspapers for coverage of the Deepwater Horizon crisis.[9] She and other graduate school classmates won a Polk Award for their radio series on early signs of global warming, which aired on PRI's Living on Earth and American Public Media's American RadioWorks.

References
  1. "The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Public Service". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2009-06-17. With short biography and reprints of 20 works (Las Vegas Sun articles March 30 to December 28, 2008).
  2. Berzon, Alexandra. "Construction Deaths". Las Vegas Sun (March 30, 2008; March 31, 2008; April 1, 2008; April 13, 2008) .
  3. Berzon, Alexandra. "Pace is the new peril", Las Vegas Sun (March 30, 2008) .
  4. Berzon, Alexandra. "OSHA goes easy: After meeting with employer only, it often reverses findings, cuts fines". Las Vegas Sun (March 31, 2008) .
  5. Berzon, Alexandra. "Employers finding way around OSHA's tougher stance". Las Vegas Sun (Dec 29, 2008) .
  6. American RadioWorks, "Living on Earth: Early Signs – Reports from a Warming Planet". Archived May 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  7. 2006 Polk Awards winners.
  8. Nevada Press Association: 2008 Awards Archived 2009-08-02 at the Wayback Machine.
  9. "Loeb Award Winners". UCLA Anderson School of Management. June 28, 2011. Archived from the original on March 21, 2019. Retrieved February 2, 2019.
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