Editor, Investigative Reporting, Indy Star
Steve Berta, 64, has been investigations editor of the Indianapolis Star since 2012. Berta led IndyStar’s award-winning coverage of sexual abuse in USA Gymnastics, which led to the conviction of Larry Nassar, the biggest sexual abuse scandal in U.S. sports history. The coverage resulted in federal legislation and the resignations of the USA Gymnastics president and board, as well as the president of Michigan State University, its gymnastics coach and the dean of its medical school. The university recently agreed to pay $500 million to settle lawsuits brought by more than 300 women who say Nassar assaulted them. Berta has led investigations into government corruption, day care regulation, pet medicines, abandoned housing, violent crime and the spread of disease through the captive deer industry. The graduate of Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism was previously news director at the Star, and business editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, where he led award-winning investigations into Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and the coal industry’s influence on Ohio’s utility and air quality regulators.