Paul Giblin
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Giblin, 48, travels across Afghanistan to report on the U.S. and coalition forces’ reconstruction efforts in the war‐torn country. He has written about an undercover investigation into a multi‐million‐dollar fraud case, anti-corruption efforts, terrorist attacks on reconstruction projects, programs to teach job skills to under-educated Afghan workers, and an effort to erect solar-powered streetlights in a capital city that has no electrical grid, among other topics. Before joining the Army as a civilian employee, Giblin worked for more than 24 years as a reporter, columnist, editor and bureau chief for newspapers and other news organizations in Arizona, Hawaii and New Mexico. He also was a regular contributor writing about Arizona topics for The New York Times from 2002 through 2009 and for The Dallas Morning News from 1993 through 2005. Working with a small group of associates, Giblin co‐founded the subscription‐based Arizona Guardian news service in January 2009. The Intranet news organization provides non‐partisan coverage of state government and politics, a sector that had been de‐emphasized by traditional news organizations during the current recession. The Guardian has received significant notice by journalism magazines and other publications as one of the pioneers of the emerging realm of “new media.” Giblin relinquished day‐to-day involvement with the Guardian when he went to Afghanistan. Giblin worked in various capacities with the East Valley Tribune in metro Phoenix from January 1995 through January 2009. Giblin and fellow reporter Ryan Gabrielson produced a five-day investigative series that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and the George Polk Award for justice reporting, among other national, regional and state awards. Giblin and Gabrielson spent six months examining Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s illegal immigration enforcement operations and their resulting assault on U.S. civil rights and their costs to county taxpayers. They reviewed thousands of pages of public records and interviewed nearly 100 law 22 Delta Chi | Quarterly | Spring/Summer 2011
enforcement officers, smugglers, U.S. senators, municipal officials, crime victims, statisticians and community leaders, among others. The FBI has since started its own investigation in the sheriff’s operations. Giblin served for years as the federal affairs reporter at the Tribune and covered the state’s 2008, 2006 and 2004 U.S. Senate and House races and immigration issues among other topics. Among other highlights, he exposed a police official’s illicit drug use; uncovered improper plans to build an NFL stadium in the flight path of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, threatening flight safety; elicited a written confession from a murder suspect; documented the lives of feral paintsniffing children living under the U.S.-Mexico border; exposed racism at a public gym; and many other topics. Giblin was a frequent guest on Horizon, a Phoenix-based TV news talk show from 1998 through 2009. He also appeared as a guest on CNN, C-Span, NPR, WNYC radio and BBC radio, plus several Phoenix-area broadcast outlets, to discuss immigration, Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and other topics. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona. He and his wife Sandra, an architect and fellow UA graduate, live in Phoenix with their son Tim. Their eldest son Casey is a freshman at UA. Giblin’s personal Web site is www.paulgiblin.net and he encourages anyone who would like to contact him about future jobs opportunities or anything else to write him at paul@paulgiblin.net.
