Leonora LaPeter Anton is an American journalist with the ''

Tampa Bay Times The ''Tampa Bay Times'', previously named the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single y ...

''. Anton was a co-recipient of the 2016

Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded since 1953, under one name or another, for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series in a U.S. news publicat ...

Biography

Anton grew up in

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

, but spent a lot of her childhood living in Greece, where her mother was an archeologist and

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. She studied journalism at

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

. Anton began her career writing for the ''Okeechobee News'' in

Okeechobee, Florida Okeechobee ( ) is a city in south-central Florida and is the county seat of Okeechobee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city's population was 5,254. It is the county seat of Okeechobee County. The Lake Okee ...

. In 1992, she was hired at ''

The Island Packet ''The Island Packet'' is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper owned by Chatham Asset Management, serving primarily the residents of southern Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States, particularly the towns of Hilton Head Island and Bluffto ...

'' in

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina Hilton Head Island, sometimes referred to as simply Hilton Head, is a South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry resort town and barrier island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. It is northeast of Savannah, Georgia, and southwest of C ...

, where she covered environmental and health care topics. Anton then worked at the ''

Tallahassee Democrat The ''Tallahassee Democrat'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper. It covers the area centered on Tallahassee in Leon County, Florida, as well as adjacent Gadsden County, Jefferson County, and Wakulla County. The newspaper is owned by Gannett Co., ...

'' in

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In ...

, and ''

Savannah Morning News The ''Savannah Morning News'' is a daily newspaper in Savannah, Georgia. It is published by Gannett. The motto of the paper is "Light of the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry". The paper serves Savannah, its metropolitan area, and parts of South Ca ...

'' in

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...

. In 2000, Anton joined the ''Tampa Bay Times''. That same year, she won the

American Society of News Editors The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) was a membership organization for editors, producers or directors in charge of journalistic organizations or departments, deans or faculty at university journalism schools, and leaders and faculty of ...

award for deadline reporting. Anton was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2016 for a series entitled "Insane. Invisible. In Danger," published in the ''Tampa Bay Times'' and ''

Sarasota Herald-Tribune The ''Sarasota Herald-Tribune'' is a daily newspaper, located in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1925 as the ''Sarasota Herald''. History The newspaper was owned by The New York Times Company from 1982 to 2012. It was then owned by Halifax Media ...

''. The series, co-authored by Michael Braga and Anthony Cormier, unveiled the violence and neglect taking place at state-funded mental hospitals in the state of Florida.

Personal life

Anton lives in

St. Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is the ...

with her husband Larry and one daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anton, Leonora LaPeter Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American newspaper writers Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting winners University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Media alumni People from Okeechobee, Florida People from St. Petersburg, Florida Journalists from Florida Journalists from Connecticut 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American women journalists 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American women journalists