Julia Wick ’07 on the Pulitzer Prize and Covering L.A.



In October of 2022, then LA Times reporter Julia Wick ’07 received a call from a source that a tape was circulating of several prominent LA City Council members making racist remarks during a redistricting conversation a year prior. Julia and her colleagues broke the story, which became a political earthquake in Los Angeles—leading to numerous high-profile resignations, and resulting in Julia and her colleagues receiving the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. In this episode, Julia tells her story, from growing up in LA and attending Harvard-Westlake and USC, to working at LAist and the LA Times before assuming her current role—as co-founder and editorial director at LA Material, a new publication aimed at making Los Angeles “legible.” Julia references Kevin Starr at USC, as well as Kathy Neumeyer and Tim Newhart of Harvard-Westlake, as profound influences on her career in journalism.