Justin Fenton

Reporter
The Baltimore Sun

Justin Fenton has spent 10 years covering crime and casting a spotlight on alleged misconduct in the Baltimore Police Department, recently leading the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-finalist stories surrounding the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.

“I’m proud to be recognized for this (Influential Marylander) award as an individual accomplishment but also because it speaks to the continued importance and influence of the press in Baltimore, particularly The Baltimore Sun,” Fenton says. “We work incredibly hard every day to tell stories our readers need to know and to hold officials accountable and seek the truth.”

Fenton joined the Sun in 2005. He began covering the Baltimore Police Department in 2008 and anchored the newspaper’s coverage of the unrest, riots and trials in Baltimore surrounding Gray’s death.

“Over the past year I’ve been mostly focused on covering the Baltimore Police Gun Trace Task Force case and a corruption scandal a decade in the making that blew wide open many preconceived notions about the scope of police misconduct,” he says. “In many ways my work on that story is just beginning.”

He is a two-time finalist for the national Livingston Award for Young Journalists and won an award from the governor’s office in 2011 for his coverage of rape claims discarded by police.

Fenton is a 2001 graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, where he served as a reporter and editor for the student newspaper, The Diamondback.

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