David Fritze
Executive editor
David Fritze has worked at The Arizona Republic in a variety of high-level positions, including as business, metro and national editor as well as a senior reporter. As a senior editor, he led a team of reporters charged with producing page-one enterprise and investigative stories on public money, education, transportation, white-collar fraud, public health, immigration and criminal justice. His reporters have won regional and national awards. Before joining The Republic in 1992, Fritze was a reporter at the Dallas Times Herald and, previously, a writer and editor at Oklahoma Monthly magazine. He grew up in Oklahoma City, graduated from the University of Oklahoma journalism school and worked for several Oklahoma newspapers. He spent a year in Ecuador on a Rotary Foundation fellowship.
Warren Vieth
Contributing editor and writer
Warren Vieth is a former reporter and editor for the Washington Bureau of the Los Angeles Times. During his 16 years in Washington, he worked as a White House correspondent, economics reporter, general assignment reporter, assistant national editor, assignment editor, project editor and night news editor. He is a senior fellow of the Institute for Justice and Journalism and director of its Immigration in the Heartland program. A native of Kingfisher, Vieth previously worked for newspapers in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Dallas. He received a journalism degree with honors from OU in 1977.
Clifton Adcock
Staff reporter
Clifton Adcock is a native Oklahoman and award-winning journalist who has worked in newspapers for more than a decade. Before joining Oklahoma Watch in March 2013, he was an investigative reporter at the Oklahoma Gazette, covering Oklahoma City government affairs and issues such as campaign financing, health care and water since 2010. From 2006 to 2010, he covered tribal affairs and public schools as a staff writer for the Tulsa World. Previously, he was a courts and police reporter at the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, a city reporter for the McAlester News-Capital, and a reporter covering tribal affairs, police, business and city beats at the Muskogee Phoenix. Adcock grew up in southeastern Oklahoma and received a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies from the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Chase Cook
Contributing writer
Chase Cook Chase Cook has been a student and professional journalist for the past two years. He received a degree in December 2012 in online journalism from the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Previously, he worked as a general-assignment reporter on a summer internship with the Tulsa World. He also was a reporter and editor for The Oklahoma Daily for two years. Chase was awarded a News21 fellowship, a program based at Arizona State University, and will spend part of this semester and the summer researching and reporting on post-9/11 veterans’ issues.
Ron J. Jackson Jr.
Contributing writer
Ron J. Jackson Jr. is an award-winning journalist and author whose professional writing career spans 26 years. He spent 14 years with The Oklahoman, investigating stories statewide on topics such Mexican drug cartels, illegal immigration and unsolved homicides. He is also the author of Alamo Survivors (Nortex Press, 2010); Blood Prairie: Perilous Adventures On The Oklahoma Frontier (Eakin Press, 2007); Chiseled In Stone: The Saga of Rocky, Oklahoma Territory (Nortex Press, 2000), and Alamo Legacy: Alamo Descendants Remember The Alamo (Eakin Press, 1997). He has written numerous magazine articles and has been featured on The History Channel.
Darren Jaworski
Contributing writer
Darren Jaworski is a website manager and data reporter for Oklahoma Watch. Darren moved to Oklahoma 17 years ago and is a journalism graduate student in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma. He received his undergraduate degree in microbiology from OU in 2009. Darren currently serves as team leader for the Oklahoma Watch data initiative.
Lindsay Whelchel
Public engagement specialist
Lindsay Whelchel graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s in journalism and was a member of Kappa Tau Alpha, a journalism honor society. She has regularly worked as a freelance journalist in Oklahoma, writing feature articles for several publications. With a commitment to nonprofit work, Lindsay has experience in grassroots awareness campaigns and communication in her previous work for the international nonprofit organization, Invisible Children. She is devoted to journalism and the power of awareness as a catalyst for change.