Tony Biasotti is an investigative journalist working in Ventura County.

Selected work

He helped arrest her and helped bail her out: Deputy out after affair with jail inmateDeputy Tyler Ebell and Nastaza Schmidt, a former inmate who died fleeing a crime scene in February, were a couple until they were spotted together.

A Ferrari, a $111K Birkin bag: CFO stole millions, developer of T.O. homeless project saysShangri-la Industries was hired to build homeless housing in Thousand Oaks and elsewhere. Now, it's suing its former CFO for at least $40 million.

Tales from Oxnard's Teatro: Shooting pool with Bob Dylan, buying weed for Willie NelsonThe historic theater has given life to music by Neil Young, Iggy Pop and others. Willie Nelson loved it so much he named an album after it.

Sidewalk food stands in Ventura County draw crowds, frustrate legal eateries, inspectorsIt's a daily ritual across Ventura County. Sidewalk food stands open shop, and then, they're gone at the end of the night. But legal owners cry foul.

Camarillo man spent 3 years clearing his name in kidnapping attempt. Here's what happenedThe charges against Randy Berks were dropped just a few weeks after they were filed. Berks then spent almost three years trying to clear his name.

Ventura County faces federal lawsuits over jail deathsIn 2023, relatives of inmates who died in Ventura County jails sued. Here's what we know.

Patagonia to lay off as many as 90 employees if they won't relocateA Patagonia employee said most of the affected workers are choosing a layoff and severance package rather than move. They have until Friday to decide.

Ventura County businesses face string of disabled access lawsuitsDozens of Ventura County businesses have been sued by a disability rights advocate who has filed more than 500 federal ADA lawsuits.

Bryn Spejcher testifies she 'went black' on cannabis before fatally stabbing man she was datingBryn Spejcher, on trial for involuntary manslaughter, told jurors on Tuesday what she remembers from the night she fatally stabbed Chad O’Melia.

Bryn Spejcher found guilty in cannabis-induced killing of man she datedJurors on Friday found Bryn Spejcher guilty in the 2018 killing of Chad O’Melia of Thousand Oaks

‘As scary as it is, that’s our job’: Prepping journalists for California’s next wildfireLizzie Johnson, a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle, drove into Paradise, California, early in the afternoon of November 8. The Camp Fire had spread to the area a few hours earlier. At the southwest edge of town, where the main road to Paradise turns into a four-lane road, she encountered a police officer manning […]

Reporters shouldn’t profile mass shooters, say expertsOn Monday, the day after a professional video gamer shot 13 people at a Madden football tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, The Washington Post published a profile of the gunman. The piece, which included a photo of him and video footage of him playing Madden NFL and giving interviews, recounted his triumph at a 2017 tournament […]

Turnaround at San Francisco Chronicle shows way for legacy newspapersThe hiring freeze started right after Jill Tucker was hired by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006. The paper was losing tens of millions of dollars a year and shedding staff through buyouts and attrition. Layoffs started a couple of years later. “I was the least senior reporter here for four or five years,” says […]

Fast-growing startup aims to ‘replace the sports page’Alex Mather has what he calls, with a touch of understatement, “pretty big goals” for his subscription-based sports news startup, The Athletic. “The best case is that we can really catch on,” he says, “and we can replace the sports page in every single city on the continent.” Mather and his cofounder, Adam Hansmann, took […]

In locker room credentialing, the lines are often blurredThere’s an old saw in sports locker rooms, an unwritten code that was sometimes actually written and posted above the door: “What you see here, what you say here, what you do here, let it stay here.” That’s fine, if a bit outdated, for the players and coaches and equipment managers. For journalists, it presents […]

Anonymous sourcing and the problem with NBA trade ‘scoops’There is, perhaps, no more fertile ground for scoops than sports journalism in the days leading up to a trade deadline such as the NBA’s, which arrived today at 3pm Eastern. For the past week, the news outlets and Twitter feeds that cover the NBA have buzzed with stories about what would or would not […]

Bill Simmons is leaving Grantland. Can the site survive without him?Bill Simmons and ESPN launched Grantland on June 8, 2011. To say the journalistic-literary world hated it would be an overstatement, but not much of one. Business Insider summed up the initial reviews as “underwhelmed.” In CJR, Sam Eifling wrote that Grantland “threatens to go down as the Manhattan Project of navel-gazing.” Nicholas Jackson declared […]

Biasotti: This NBA Finals highlights future of NBAFor the first time, the NBA Finals are a matchup of two teams playing in the modern style: small, fast lineups; lots of perimeter penetration, ball movement and 3-point shooting; and offensive and defensive tactics that are intricate.

Get in touch at tony@tonybiasotti.com

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