Ziva Branstetter is the founding CEO of the Tulsa Flyer and a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. She oversees business and editorial operations and strategic partnerships for the Flyer and The Oklahoma Eagle.

Over three decades, Ziva has led high-impact newsrooms in Tulsa and nationally, overseeing investigations that won or were named finalists for more than 15 national and international awards.

Before the Flyer, Ziva led investigative teams at ProPublica, The Washington Post and Reveal. At ProPublica, her team’s groundbreaking reporting exposed the deadly consequences of state abortion bans, winning the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and uncovered how one of the world’s largest medical device manufacturers concealed complaints from the FDA and the public, winning a George Polk Award and ending the U.S. sale of certain devices.

At The Post, Ziva’s teams investigated unsafe baby sleepers that triggered product recalls, prompting the resignation of the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and exposed offshore financial networks through the Pandora Papers investigation — the largest collaboration in journalism history.

A pioneer in independent local journalism, in 2015 Ziva co-founded The Frontier, a nonprofit investigative newsroom that now partners with the Flyer. She spent more than 20 years at the Tulsa World where her investigation into the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office resulted in the indictment and resignation of the county’s seven-term sheriff. Her investigation into Oklahoma’s flawed death penalty system was named a 2015 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting. She is an inductee of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame and has served on multiple nonprofit journalism boards.

Ziva has been married to Doug Branstetter for more than 30 years. Their family includes two sons, Parker and Jordan; a grandson, Xander; and his mom, Annaliese Branstetter. Ziva is a proud graduate of Oklahoma State University and a native of Fayetteville, Ark.