After a seven-year career with The Associated Press, Ron Nixon left his role as the Director of the AP Local Investigative Reporting Program in March of 2026. His previous role was Vice President, News and Head of Investigations, Enterprise, Partnerships and Grants at the AP. Nixon received the inaugural 2021 News Leader of the Year award from the News Leaders Association. He has overseen investigations that have won a number of national and international awards including: A Pulitzer finalist in investigative reporting, the Worth Bingham Award for Investigative reporting, the Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, the 2021 Joe and Laurie Dine Award from the Overseas Press Club and the Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics, a Robert F Kennedy Journalism Award, the Society of Publishers in Asia award, and the Human Rights Press Award, to name a few. He is also co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting.

Nixon oversaw a 2019 investigation in collaboration with PBS Frontline that won a national News and Documentary Emmy for an in-depth look into the record-breaking numbers of migrant children in detention under President Trump. A collaboration with Frontline in 2020 won an IRE award for an investigation into the impact of Covid-19 on the global medical supply chain. Nixon joined the AP in 2019 from The New York Times Washington bureau, where he was a homeland security correspondent, covering border and aviation security, immigration, cybercrime and cybersecurity, transnational crime and violent extremism.

He has reported from Rwanda, Uganda, Belgium, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Senegal, Mozambique, Burundi, Kenya, El Salvador, the United Kingdom, Peru, Brazil, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is the author of the book Selling Apartheid: Apartheid South Africa’s Global Propaganda War.

Nixon briefed National Press Foundation Widening the Pipeline fellows in March of 2026: Taking Your Shot at Local Investigative Reporting.