PALM BEACH, Fla. _ The University of Florida has created an investigative journalism position in honor of Rob Hiaasen, a reporter who was killed in the June shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Md.
Journalist Ted Bridis will be the College of Journalism and Communications' first Rob Hiaasen Lecturer in Investigative Reporting this fall, the university states on its website.
Hiaasen, 59, was one of five Capital Gazette staff members killed in a deadly shooting on June 28. He had worked as a columnist and editor for the newspaper since 2010.
Hiaasen graduated from UF with a degree in journalism in 1981 and joined the Palm Beach Post in 1987. He wrote more than 500 stories before he left the Post in 1993 and went to The Baltimore Sun, where he worked for 15 years.
One of Hiaasen's most notable stories was an investigation headlined "Dr. Acer's Deadly Secret" published in the Post on Sept. 29, 1991.
The story revealed how a dentist in Jensen Beach hid his bisexuality and had infected six of his patients with the AIDS virus.
Bridis has been an editor of The Associated Press' Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington investigative team, which won the 2012 Pulitzer and Goldsmith prizes for investigative reporting on NYPD intelligence programs.
He "will be teaching courses in fact finding and investigative reporting, among others," UF states on its website.
