Urbina was initially a reporter on the Times ' Metro desk . In 2005 , Urbina moved to the Times ' national desk to become its Mid-Atlantic Bureau chief , where he covered West Virginia coal mining disasters , the Gulf oil spill , the Virginia Tech shootings and numerous other breaking stories . He has also written extensively on criminal justice issues , including stories about the use of prisoners for pharmaceutical experiments , immigrant detainees working as unpaid workers , solitary confinement in immigration detention facilities , and the dependence of the U.S. Defense Department on prison labor . He became a senior investigative reporter for the National Desk in 2010 , where he wrote a series in 2011 , Drilling Down , about the oil and gas industry and fracking
West Virginia coal mining disasters
Upper Big Branch Mine disaster
Ian Urbina