Joel Grover is an investigative journalist for

KNBC KNBC (channel 4) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast of the United States, West Coast flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. He is nationally known for his undercover investigations, exposes and consumer reports.

Education and early career

Joel Grover graduated from Ulysses S. Grant High School in Van Nuys, CA in 1977. After attending the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, he began his career in

Grand Junction, Colorado Grand Junction is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and largest city of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. Grand Junction's population was 65,560 at the 2020 United St ...

. After working for the NBC affiliate local news broadcast in Las Vegas, NV, he took a job as an investigative reporter at KSTP Minneapolis before coming to Los Angeles as a reporter for KCBS. In 2003 he joined KNBC's Investigative Team. Grover was a contestant on "Password Plus" while he was attending UC Berkeley.

Investigative work

Grover's investigative work has changed laws, attitudes and entire government systems. Grover's hidden-camera reports on restaurant cleanliness revealed employees of many restaurants not washing hands, not washing food, dropping it onto the floor and worse. The report put pressure on lawmakers in the

County of Los Angeles Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

to enact a letter-grade system after semi-monthly inspections. Another undercover investigative piece on

Jiffy Lube Jiffy Lube International, Inc. is an American chain of automotive oil change specialty shops founded in Utah, United States, in 1971. It has been a subsidiary of Shell since 2002, and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Overview There are a ...

oil-change scams helped reorganize the entire company. In 2008, he exposed how thousands of children in the LA Unified School District were drinking water contaminated with unsafe amounts of lead. The District put over 1000 fountains dispensing tainted water out of commission and has installed filters at over 200 schools. In 2009, he caught city agencies breaking city water laws by wasting water and subsequently being liable for thousands of taxpayer dollars in fines. He also caught Los Angeles Mayor

Antonio Villaraigosa Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa (; né Villar Jr. on January 23, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 41st Mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Villaraigosa was a national co-chairman of Hillary C ...

watering his lawn at illegal times despite calling on the public to stop using water.

Awards

Grover has won countless awards for his investigative reporting, including 22

Emmys The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

, six National Edward R. Murrow Awards, two Investigative Reporters and Editors Medals, three

Society of Professional Journalists The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States. It was established on April 17, 1909, at DePauw University,2009 SPJ Annual Report, lette ...

Medals, the Peabody and the DuPont-Columbia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grover, Joel Living people American investigative journalists Grant High School (Los Angeles) alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni American television reporters and correspondents Year of birth missing (living people)