Lorie Hearn, founder and longtime CEO and editor of inewsource, has retired after 16 years leading the San Diego nonprofit investigative newsroom. Jamie Self, inewsource managing editor since 2023, has been named CEO and editor.
inewsource Board Chair Karen Liu celebrated Hearn’s retirement in announcing the transition, which took effect Jan. 1.
“Lorie built this powerhouse organization from the ground up when other news outlets were shrinking,” Liu said. “We’ve been fortunate to have had her leadership for the past 16 years and now to have a seamless transition to our new CEO, Jamie Self.”
Before founding inewsource in 2009, Hearn was a senior editor of investigative journalism and metro editor for The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she supervised more than 100 newsroom staffers. After seeing how staffing cuts had decimated investigative reporting positions across the U.S., she left the U-T to launch a nonprofit newsroom.
inewsource has received numerous national and local investigative reporting awards under Hearn’s leadership, including two Edward R. Murrow awards for its “Impossible Choice” investigation into subacute hospital units where patients remained on life support indefinitely. Last year, inewsource was named a Pulitzer finalist for its illustrated reporting project, “Fentanyl: A Decade of Death,” which Self edited.
Hearn grew inewsource into a strong business, adding key reporting and revenue positions. She also brought the lauded Documenters program to San Diego, making inewsource the first news organization in Southern California and the only one in San Diego with the civic engagement program, which trains and pays community members to attend public meetings and document what happens.
Hearn will assist with inewsource’s transition and serve on its development committee.
“I’m proud of what inewsource has been able to do for the public over the years,” she said. “I am confident that the new leadership and the staff will take its local reporting to an even higher level of excellence for the region.”
Sandra Timmons, inewsource’s board chair from 2021 to 2025, said Hearn led with a “deep concern for providing local news that communities and individuals can use to change their lives. It was her leadership that brought the Documenters to San Diego and her commitment that has made our program a model nationally.”
Hearn’s legacy includes helping to build the nonprofit news sector nationally. She is a founding member of the Institute for Nonprofit News.
“Lorie stepped into the breach when the nonprofit movement was barely off the ground,” said inewsource board Member Karin Winner, a former editor and vice president of news for the Union-Tribune. “She pioneered inewsource through difficult times in the media world and helped lay the nonprofit foundation for many of her peers to follow. She’s a dedicated journalist who’s never stopped pursuing the truth, holding people accountable and giving voice to those who most need it. I’m in awe of what she’s accomplished.”
Karen Rundlet, INN’s CEO and executive director, said Hearn “has been an important and principled leader for communities, for the field of journalism and for the mission driven nonprofit news sector.
“Thank you for your strategy and hustle, Lorie,” Rundlet said. “After years as an investigative journalist, Lorie built inewsource, a local news outlet that delivers powerful reporting, without forgetting that you have to back it up with solid funding and operations.”
Self said Hearn built a strong foundation at inewsource, one she plans to build on. Before coming to San Diego in 2021, she worked in daily newspapers for a decade, including as the senior editor of politics and state government at The State newspaper, a McClatchy daily in Columbia, South Carolina.
“Lorie has always pushed us to see our work as a public service with the power to improve lives and change the course of history,” Self said. “As we begin this new chapter, we remain focused on serving our audiences with innovative journalism and delivering the high-impact investigative reporting we value most. Stay tuned for some exciting developments this year.”
inewsource will hold a special Spotlight Club event this spring to honor Hearn and her commitment to local news and nonprofit journalism. Invitations will be forthcoming.
Learn more about inewsource and join the Spotlight Club by visiting inewsource.org/spotlightclub.
