Eric Ortiz
Guest Writer at Truthdig
Eric Ortiz is the managing editor of Truthdig. A journalist and innovator with two decades in digital media, Ortiz founded the mobile app startup Evrybit, a live storytelling and reporting tool, as a 2014 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. Before becoming a Knight Fellow, Ortiz was the senior editor of new media at New England Sports Network (NESN) and an associate editor at ESPN. At NESN, he was responsible for the launching and development of its NESN.com website. Under his editorial leadership, NESN.com grew into the most popular regional sports website in the United States. At ESPN, he coordinated Major League Baseball coverage across all of the network's platforms, conceived and directed the first bilingual multimedia collaboration with ESPN.com and ESPN Deportes, and led production of ESPN.com's first audio slideshow. Ortiz is a Los Angeles native and a graduate of Stanford University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in English. He volunteers at the Lennox School District in Lennox, Calif., leading a journalism club with fifth graders. He used to volunteer at Homeboy Industries, which operates a program for at-risk youths, former gang members and the recently incarcerated. Ortiz lives in Santa Monica, Calif., with his wife and three children.
Latest posts by Eric Ortiz (see all)
Imagine you are charged with a crime you didn’t commit, then wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder. Now, imagine you get sentenced to death by electric chair, sent to one of the most notorious prisons in the United States, and assigned an execution date. That’s what happened to Gary Tyler. In 1974, Tyler was arrested for disturbing the peace as a 16-year-old sophomore at Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish, La., after a racial altercation…