Amita Sharma
Investigative ReporterAs the public matters investigative reporter, Amita leads KPBS’ coverage on efforts to undermine democracy, including threats to public officials, bolstering the Big Lie, chipping away at voter’s rights, attempts to overturn election results, eroding institutions and weakening the government's capacity to do its job, as well as civic efforts to engage people with opposing views without rancor.
The goal of the position is to report on the stakes, from a San Diego County perspective, on the United States’ current political moment.
She has spent the last two years reporting on local threats to democracy, including regional extremism, the shrinking of local news coverage while the number of hyper partisan “news” websites grow, censorship at libraries and incivility at public meetings.
Her previous coverage includes: exposing abuses in local nursing homes at the height of the pandemic, including a serial rapist who had worked in several El Cajon facilities and was arrested following her reporting; unearthing a contract between the city of Chula Vista and Motorola that allowed the company to sell data collected by the Chula Vista Police Department; and reporting on discrimination and retaliation in the San Diego County Public Defender’s Office that led to court settlements and the retirement of the Public Defender.
-
One of the U.S. Attorneys dismissed by the Bush administration, David Iglesias of New Mexico, surfaces over and over again at the center of the scandal. He's gone public about the political strong-arm
-
San Diego consumers are being alerted to yet another recall of tainted beef. Full Focus Reporter Amita Sharma has more.
-
Anguish at the gas pump is nothing new. But now consumers are facing agony at the grocery store too. Food prices have soared nearly 6 percent in the last year. Full Focus Reporter Amita Sharma has mor
-
As if stratospheric home prices and skyrocketing gas prices weren't enough to break a San Diegan's wallet, now there's one more cost hike to worry about: food. Full Focus reporter Amita Sharma has mor
-
Today is national gasoline boycott day: a grassroots protest by motorists around the country who want to put a speed bump on gas prices. Full Focus reporter Amita Sharma has more about how the boycott
-
Some folks in the backcountry of San Diego County may have never heard of Blackwater USA, the budding private military contractor that wants to build a training center in Potrero. But award-winning re
-
County requiring employees of grocery stores and many other retail outlets to wear masks as of midnight Friday. That’s a tall order, says the California Grocers Association.
- Experts concerned about white nationalist imagery in ICE recruitment materials
- Animal shelter supervisor ‘out of the office’ after revelation of profane recording
- New Terminal 1 at San Diego Airport opens to passengers
- Ramona cemetery district board member uncovers unusual compensation records
- Department of Homeland Security eyes military and veterans to join immigrant crackdown