Jaquiss, Nigel 1964(?)-

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JAQUISS, Nigel 1964(?)-

PERSONAL: Born c. 1964; married; children: three. Education: Dartmouth College, B.A., 1984; Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, graduated, 1997.

ADDRESSES: Home—Portland, OR. Office—Willamette Week, 822 S.W. 10th Ave., Portland, OR 97205. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Willamette Week, Portland, OR, investigative journalist, 1998–. Cargill, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs, New York, NY, and Singapore, oil trader, 1984–95.

AWARDS, HONORS: Three-time winner, Education Writers Association First Place Awards; numerous Society of Professional Journalists local awards; two-time runner-up, Bruce Bear Award; Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Contributor to Willamette Week.

SIDELIGHTS: An investigative journalist for the Willamette Week of Portland, Oregon, Nigel Jaquiss won a Pulitzer prize in 2005 for his reporting on a sexual abuse scandal that involved former Portland mayor and Oregon governor, Neil Goldschmidt. After more than two months of searching police records and playing journalistic hunches, Jaquiss was able to show that Goldschmidt, a popular ex-politician, had engaged in sexual misconduct during the 1970s with a girl then aged fourteen to whom he later paid a settlement of 400,000 dollars. Jaquiss was almost trumped in his investigation when the major Oregon daily, the Oregonian seemingly scooped his story. Goldschmidt himself, learning of the imminent publication of Jaquiss's story, confessed in an interview with the larger paper. Jaquiss's smaller weekly quickly put their story online, however, and nearly a year later the Pulitzer Prize committee rewarded Jaquiss's diligence and hard work with the award for investigative reporting. Such awards usually go to larger newspapers, which can afford to hire a staff for the research and patient work such investigations take. In fact, this was just the fifth time such an award has gone to a weekly. Jaquiss tackled the investigation solo and put all his efforts into it, telling Gina Piccalo of the Los Angeles Times that during the two months of his investigation, "if I was awake, I was working on that story."