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 astrona ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

for ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...

'', former math teacher, and

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

winner. He has been assigned to cover

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for ''The Times'' since 2003. Gates was a co-recipient of the

2020 Pulitzer Prize The 2020 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded by the Pulitzer Prize Board for work during the 2019 calendar year. Prize winners and nominated finalists were initially scheduled to be announced by Pulitzer administrator Dana Canedy on April 20, 2020, but ...

in National Reporting alongside

Steve Miletich ''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen Notable people with the name include: steve jops * Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people * Steve Adams (disambiguation), several people * Steve ...

, Mike Baker, and

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for their coverage of the

Boeing 737 MAX The Boeing 737 MAX is the fourth generation of the Boeing 737, a narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), a division of American company Boeing. It succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG ...

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 14,340 at the 2011 Census. The Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council had its headquarters in the ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

, 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 , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. 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 h ...

'' 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 magazine based in San Francisco which was published betwe ...

'' 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 jet airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After dropping its unconventional Sonic Cruiser project, Boeing announced the conventional 7E7 on January 29, 2003, ...

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

, Mike Baker, and

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 award ...

in Business Reporting, the

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 Northern Ireland emigrants to the United States Schoolteachers from Washington (state) Mathematics educators Gerald Loeb Award winners for Deadline and Beat Reporting