Nicole Stock

Nicole Stock is an associate audience editor at The New York Times, focused on health and wellness. She previously worked at the Chicago Tribune and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

The Failures Before the Fires - A Better Government Association and Chicago Tribune investigation

During my time as an investigative reporting intern at the Better Government Association, I contributed to this investigation by analyzing city databases, medical records, news clips and court cases to track patterns. I also filed Freedom of Information Act requests and helped create original databases to catalogue the fires.

This investigation won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting.

Better Government Association and Chicago Tribune • April 23, 2021

The Failures Before the Fires: In six years, 61 people died in Chicago buildings where the city knew of fire safety issues

At least 61 people — including 23 under the age of 17 — died since 2014 in Chicago buildings where city officials knew of fire safety problems, sometimes for years, yet failed to crack down on property owners in time, an investigation by the Better Government Association and the Chicago Tribune has found.

Better Government Association and Chicago Tribune • April 23, 2021

Deadly Fires, Broken Promises: Chicago’s political leaders fail to enact safety rules that stick

After a fire killed four children in a South Side apartment building with known fire safety problems, indignant politicians again vowed consequences for landlords who fail to keep tenants safe. It was just one more in a pattern of broken promises going back more than a century.

The Quiet Rooms - A Chicago Tribune and ProPublica Illinois investigation

As a contributor to The Quiet Rooms, I helped with data reporting on the piece. This involved sorting through nearly 50,000 pages of files with the team to create a database that chronicled all the incidents of seclusion and restraint in Illinois schools over a two-year period.

This investigation won the 2020 Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability from The National Center on Disability and Journalism, The University of Florida Award for Investigative Data Journalism in a Large Newsroom from the Online News Association, the Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Reporting from the Education Writers Association, the Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics from The Center for Journalism Ethics at University of Wisconsin, and Honorable Mention from The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma and was a 2020 Selden Ring Award finalist from USC Annenberg.

Chicago Tribune and ProPublica Illinois • November 19, 2019

The Quiet Rooms

Children are being locked away, alone and terrified, in schools across Illinois. Often, it’s against the law. The spaces have gentle names: The reflection room. The cool-down room. The calming room. The quiet room. But shut inside them, in public schools across the state, children as young as 5 wail for their parents, scream in anger and beg to be let out.