A native of Springfield, Ohio, he worked on “Behind the Badge,” a series that detailed the flawed hiring practices by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He also published an investigation that found the Los Angeles Police Department routinely misclassified violent crime data. A three-time Livingston Award finalist, Poston has won several national awards, including a George Polk Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, a National Headliner Award and Sigma Delta Chi’s award for First Amendment reporting. Prior to working at The Times, he was the data editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.