Mary Fricker

Mary Fricker was working as the lone reporter for the Russian River News when Stephen Pizzo purchased the paper. She took a keen interest in the savings and loan stories and agreed to collaborate on Inside Job. After the book was published, Fricker became an independent journalist. She spent the next twenty years as a business reporter for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, a New York Times publication. Currently, she publishes www.repowatch.org, which tracks the repurchase market and shadow banking; the site won the 2012 Best in Business Award for Digital Blogs from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. In 2010, she received the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage from the University of Georgia for her work with the Chauncey Bailey Project in Oakland, California. Among her other awards are three Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards, the UCLA Gerald Loeb Award, the George Polk Award, several New York Times Chairman’s Awards, the National Headliner Award, and an Associated Press award for best business reporting on the mortgage crisis. Mary is now retired and living in Sebastopol, California.