I’m an editor and writer and San Franciscan living in permanent exile in the East Bay. 
Currently, I edit Stanford Business magazine and coverage of research at the Stanford’s busines school. Previously, I was the deputy editor (magazine) of Mother Jones, where I held several editorial roles over more than a decade.
Some greatest hits: I edited Shane Bauer’s National Magazine Award-winning account of working in a private prison and was part of the team nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy for the accompanying multimedia package. I invesitgated a forgotten murder case involving the National Rifle Association’s top lawyer. I wrote the first in-depth profile of shock jock Michael Savage and later uncovered emails documenting his 
chaotic stint helping run San Francisco’s Presidio.
Several stories I’ve written, edited, or worked on have received awards and other recognition. Slate once said I wrote the “year’s best headline.”
My writing and reporting have been published by the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Atlas Obscura, Salon, Frontline/World, California, the East Bay Express, Meatpaper, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. My radio stories have aired on KQED’s The California Report, Marketplace, Bite, and the proto-podcast B-Side. Once, 
a photograph I took ended up on the cover of the National Enquirer.
I also enjoy writing about historical topics, such as California’s children’s crusade against squirrels, Jefferson Davis’ desk, Berkeley’s “garbage war” of 1908, and the CIA’s psychological profiles of dictators.
I attended the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where I taught a section of J200: Reporting the News in fall 2017.
Some fun stuff I’ve made: the quasi-biannual Blue Angels survey, the bubble chart calculator, and the West Marin sheriff’s calls generator.
If you made it this far, feel free to drop me a line at dave at davegilson dot com.