Dietz

David Dietz, an investigative reporter and editor who worked at the Examiner, the Chronicle, TheStreet.com and Bloomberg News, died Wednesday of cancer at his home in Healdsburg. He was 70.

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s obit said that Dietz’s last in-depth article for Bloomberg Markets in March showed how some corporations took federal tax credits meant to reduce poverty and used them instead for developing office buildings and luxury hotels. His report, “Gaming the system,” led the U.S. Treasury Department to announce that it would make changes.

A sense of right and wrong helped make Dietz the “outstanding investigative reporter” he was, said Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Bloomberg News.

“Like all great reporters, he had an instinctual awareness of injustice,” Winkler told the Santa Rosa PD. “He never flagged in attempting to infuse that sense of injustice into all of his reporting.”

Dietz had been with Bloomberg News since 2001. Previously he worked at the Chronicle, where he was special projects editor for investigative reporting, and the Examiner, where he met his wife of 24 years, Joanne Derbort, now the Press Democrat’s features and Savor magazine editor. (Photo credit: Bloomberg News)