Adam Ashton

Adam Ashton is a deputy editor supervising CalMatters’ coverage of health care, mental health and criminal justice. Adam previously led the local news staff as assistant managing editor at The Sacramento Bee, prioritizing coverage of homelessness, public safety, education and underserved communities. He worked in The Bee’s Capitol Bureau for six years as a senior writer covering state government and then as bureau chief supervising reporters covering California politics and policy. 

He has worked as a reporter and editor in West Coast newsrooms since 2004, including assignments covering local government in the San Joaquin Valley for The Modesto Bee and Merced Sun-Star, as well as covering the military and veterans in western Washington for The News Tribune of Tacoma. Adam reported from Afghanistan, embedding with soldiers who were later attacked by allies in the Afghan police force, and from Iraq, where he broke a story that revealed a military contractor’s mistreatment of foreign laborers from South Asia. 

Adam is passionate about holding leaders accountable through records-driven investigation. His coverage of war crimes committed by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan was recognized by Military Reporters and Editors, as well as by the Society of Professional Journalists Northwest chapter.  In 2015, he built a coalition of journalists to press the Defense Department to release a classified investigation into a massacre in Afghanistan committed by a soldier on his fourth combat deployment. The collaboration was recognized as a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors “golden padlock award,” and it resulted in the military releasing the report.