Dominic Gates is an Irish-American

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astron ...

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

for ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Time ...

'', former math teacher, and

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

winner. He has been assigned to cover

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

for ''The Times'' since 2003. Gates was a co-recipient of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting alongside Steve Miletich, Mike Baker, and Lewis Kamb for their coverage of the

Boeing 737 MAX The Boeing 737 MAX is a series of narrow-body aircraft developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes as the fourth generation of the Boeing 737. It succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation and incorporates more efficient CFM International LEAP engin ...

crashes and investigations.

Early life

Gates was born in

Dungannon Dungannon (, ) is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the second-largest town in the county (after Omagh) and had a population of 16,282 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2021 Census. The Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Counci ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, as one of six children. He was educated at St Patrick's Academy in Dungannon and graduated with a mathematics degree from

Queen's University, Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

. Gates taught high school mathematics in Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe before relocating to the United States.

Journalism career

While having no formal training in journalism, Gates contributed several articles to the magazine ''

Fortnight A fortnight is a unit of time equal to 14 days (two weeks). The word derives from the Old English term , meaning "" (or "fourteen days", since the Anglo-Saxons counted by nights). Astronomy and tides In astronomy, a ''lunar fortnight'' is hal ...

'' on an unpaid basis. After moving to Seattle with his wife in 1992, he took on several freelancing assignments for various magazines and news organizations while continuing to teach mathematics. Gates was hired by technology magazine ''

The Industry Standard ''The Industry Standard'' is a U.S. news web site dedicated to technology business news, part of ''InfoWorld'', a news website covering technology in general. It is a revival of a weekly print magazine based in San Francisco which was published ...

'' in 2000, but the magazine went out of business 18 months later. Gates then joined ''

'' in 2003 as an

reporter, covering the local

beat. He covered the development and launch of the

Boeing 787 Dreamliner The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is an American wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After dropping its unconventional Sonic Cruiser project, Boeing announced the conventional 7E7 on January 29, 2003, wh ...

project and later the

program, including two fatal crashes and the subsequent grounding of the aircraft. He won critical acclaim for his investigation into the 737 MAX and its automated flight control system, which had been written prior to the second crash. Gates and ''Times'' colleagues Steve Miletich, Mike Baker, and Lewis Kamb were awarded the 2019

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

in Business Reporting, the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting, and the 2020 Gerald Loeb Award for Beat Reporting for their coverage of the Boeing 737 MAX program.

Personal life

Gates is married to Nina Shapiro, a fellow journalist at ''The Seattle Times'' whom he met while teaching in Zimbabwe. They have two adult daughters.

Selected bibliography

* "Boeing's 737 MAX Crisis", ''The Seattle Times'' – award-winning series :#"Flawed analysis, failed oversight: How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system", March 21, 2019 :#"Engineers say Boeing pushed to limit safety testing in race to certify planes, including 737 MAX", May 5, 2019 :#"The inside story of MCAS: How Boeing's 737 MAX system gained power and lost safeguards", June 24, 2019 :#"Boeing rejected 737 MAX safety upgrades before fatal crashes, whistleblower says", October 3, 2019 :#"Boeing pushed FAA to relax 737 MAX certification requirements for crew alerts", October 3, 2019

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gates, Dominic 21st-century American journalists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American investigative journalists Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners The Seattle Times people Journalists from Northern Ireland People from Dungannon Emigrants from Northern Ireland to the United States Schoolteachers from Washington (state) American mathematics educators Gerald Loeb Award winners for Deadline and Beat Reporting People educated at St Patrick's Academy, Dungannon Writers from County Tyrone