John Danna

Background

About John Danna

John D’Anna is the Senior News Director for the Pulitzer-prize winning Santa Rosa Press Democrat, where he exhorts his staff to afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted and bring him donuts. Previously he was the paper's senior news director for investigations and enterprise. In that role, he directed nationally award-winning projects on wildfire recovery, death with dignity, and clean energy. Before coming to Santa Rosa, he was a nationally award-winning senior reporter at the Arizona Republic, where he also served as Page 1 editor, deputy managing editor, public editor, senior editor, projects editor, and enviro-blogger, but not all at once. As a reporter he solved the 87-year-old mystery of Arizona's Hatbox Baby; exposed racism in Arizona's historic territorial capital; told the story of a child dinosaur genius who unwittingly got caught up in a national game show cheating scandal; and won a national APSE investigative reporting award for exposing the selective prosecution of an African-American youth in a high school football hazing scandal. As Page 1 editor, he was responsible for the print presentation of the Republic's 2018 Pulitzer Prize winning series on the border wall. He was also a key member of teams that covered the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson in 2011 and the Yarnell Hill Fire, which killed 19 wild land firefighters in 2013. Both were Pulitzer finalists. As a young reporter at the late, great, Oakland Tribune, he interviewed Morris the Cat and the governor of California on the same day. It was the only time he can recall preferring the company of a cat. He was a longtime faculty associate at Arizona State's Cronkite School, where he exhorted students to get the facts right, get the right facts and bring him donuts. He serves on the University of Arizona Journalism School advisory council and was a longtime board member of the Arizona First Amendment Coalition. He often guest lectures on media law and journalism for free so he can rationalize not donating to his alumni association. In 2016 D'Anna fought a subpoena of his notes and became the center of a press-freedom case that went to the Arizona Supreme Court and resulted in a major legal protections for Arizona journalists. He also successfully oversaw several major legal cases for the Republic that were feted at FOI awards banquets, which he enjoyed very much, even if they didn't serve donuts. In his spare time, he plays ice hockey (not well) and is a fifth-degree black belt and 3-time world Taekwondo champion (yeah, at his age).