A New Investigations Editor for National

It started, like so many great investigations do: with news. It was 2019, and a truck driver had plowed into a group of motorcyclists in New Hampshire, killing seven - another deadly crash in a country awash in them.

But the best investigative editors tend to know when there's more to a story. At the Boston Globe, Brendan McCarthy and his quick-strike investigative team dug in. The same systemic breakdown that had allowed the driver in that crash to be on the road that day had failed again and again, allowing problem drivers back behind the wheel because agencies were not communicating.

Told in an exhilarating combination of video, text, data and more, the resulting investigative series - "Blind Spot" - was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 2021.

Now Brendan, who has led the Globe's revered Spotlight team since early 2024, will bring his keen eye for investigative angles, sharp sense of story and boundless creativity with all manner of story forms to The Times, joining the National desk as our investigations editor.

As the Spotlight editor, Brendan led varied projects that all seemed to land with tremendous force. His team's investigation into the collapse of a national hospital chain was a Pulitzer finalist. The team's "Snitch City" project, about police abuses of the confidential informant system, was recently named one of the top podcasts of the year. An earlier podcast and investigative project on a 1989 murder that shaped Boston led the mayor to apologize to the people who had been wrongly accused.

Before joining the Globe in 2018, Brendan was the founding editor of the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting - a nonprofit that won a Peabody Award for podcasting and other honors. At The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, where he covered crime, he was a 2009 Pulitzer finalist. He was also a Polk Award winner as part of a team that covered police abuses for a "Frontline" documentary.

(Memorably - for Brendan, anyway - he played himself in an episode of the HBO series "Treme.")

Brendan has strong experience shepherding both quick-turnaround investigations off the news and complex projects that hold power to account. He will take the baton from Kim Murphy, who is retiring following a terrific run with National's immensely talented investigative unit. In the last several weeks, the team has produced revelatory journalism about the rise of America's billionaire class and the dark secret life of Cesar Chavez - sure to be one of the scoops of the year.

Brendan, a native of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, starts later this month. Please join me in welcoming him to The Times.

- Nestor