Award-winning 11Alive reporter Matt Pearl is leaving the station after 12 years, he announced on public social media platforms Friday.
Pearl has pocketed 35 Southeast Emmy awards for his reporting at the NBC affiliate.
“I walked in with a questionable haircut and a genuine belief in meaningful, memorable storytelling,” he wrote on Facebook. “12 years later, I’ll say goodbye with that same belief and appreciation. Next month will be my last at 11Alive.”
Because of his ability to weave a story, 11Alive gave him the unusual title of “Chief of Storytelling & Development.”
Pearl said he has another job in the wings but can’t say what it is just yet.
In his post, he thanks his mentors and his colleagues, from former anchor Brenda Wood to fellow award-winning journalist Brendan Keefe to his former news director Ellen Crooke, now senior vice president at TEGNA, which owns 11Alive.
He previously worked at a station in Buffalo. Crooke recruited him to Atlanta in 2009.
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Investigative reporter Nicole Carr has left Channel 2 Action News on WSB-TV after five years to join ProPublica, an independent nonprofit newsroom that produces in-depth journalism in the public interest.
She will be part of the organization’s expanded Southeast bureau out of Atlanta and focus on criminal justice and racial inequity.
Carr has won three Emmys.
She covered Georgia’s historic 2020 elections and various aspects of the pandemic and over the years has specialized in stories about law enforcement and government accountability.
As ProPublica noted in its press release, Carr was part of a joint 2020 investigation with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examining physical abuse and sexual misconduct incidents in National Guard youth camps. She was also among the first reporters to take an in-depth look at the initial investigation of Reality Winner, the former Georgia-based NSA contractor who’s serving the longest espionage sentence in U.S. history for leaking Russian election interference documents to the press.
