This republished story was written by the late Tracy Wood. Her powerful work, as this story demonstrates, serves as a persistent championship of the power of the press and the ongoing need for journalists and the public to push government to maintain openness of public records and meetings.
Author Archives: Tracy Wood
Tracy Wood oversees Voice of OC’s civics reporting, including county and city government, the Orange County Transportation Authority, CalOptima, Anaheim, Santa Ana and other community coverage.
Tracy is a former government reporter, foreign correspondent in Asia, California investigative reporter and editor. She has covered the California legislature and governor’s office for both United Press International and the Los Angeles Times. As a UPI reporter, she was one of the few women combat correspondents during the Vietnam War. She joined the Los Angeles Times in California where she was an investigative reporter for 17 years, covering political and government corruption. Later she became the Orange County Register’s Investigations Editor, leading the paper’s investigations team when it broke the story of former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona’s ties to Nationwide Auction Systems founder and former Assistant Sheriff Donald G. Haidl.
She has won numerous awards for investigative reporting and in 2001 was named Los Angeles Print Journalist of the Year by Sigma Delta Chi, the professional journalism association.
Wood and eight other women reporters from Vietnam co-authored “War Torn, Stories of War from the Women Reporters who Covered Vietnam” (2002 Random House). She was also part of the Los Angeles Times staff team that won the 1993 Pulitzer for coverage of the Rodney King riots. The Pulitzer was for spot news coverage for balanced, comprehensive, penetrating coverage under deadline pressure of the second, most destructive day of the Los Angeles riots.
