Here are a few samples of Matt’s work. Most of it is recent — it’s hard to trace down pieces from over a 20-year career. Matt has narrated it in the first person because he’s tired of writing in the third person. Links will open in a new tab or window.

This was the start of a series of editorials I wrote that was part of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

This piece explores the number of workplace deaths, injuries, and illnesses that were heralded as a success by some people. It was a result of my work on occupational safety in America and a part of the Sun’s Pulitzer Prize. I’m not an ideologue, but after hundreds of hours of work, I can say that our safety record, as admirable as it may be, is still too high. But that’s another discussion.

Other pieces that were in the Pulitzer can be found here and this piece had White House officials incensed. (I had a few calls at home from Washington.)

Several members of Nevada’s congressional delegation recognized the work. Here’s one of them by Rep. Dina Titus.

I haven’t written much about depression, but it is something I have dealt with. Robin Williams’ death led me to write this.

My former colleague Mike Smith, the Las Vegas Sun’s editorial cartoonist, and I traveled around Nevada to tell some stories. It was a great project. Here is a piece about a couple of men who decided to live out their lives in a ghost town. Here’s another about a man, now a friend, who bought a historic inn in the middle of nowhere and found red tape and bureaucracy. (True story: The state fire marshal asked me if I thought someone could get out of the place at night in a fire.)

Part of the project was to include an almanac of places in Nevada. This was one of the original pieces about a place called St. Thomas that I liked.

For something lighter, here’s a tongue-in-cheek piece about what photographer Steve Marcus and I found at the cemetery outside St. Thomas. (The cemetery was relocated before St. Thomas was flooded by Lake Mead.)

Few know that a couple of religious groups started in Nevada, and I would guess that even fewer have ever been to a spot in the desert that sits high above a state route and has some religious significance to a small group. (It was quite a hike.)

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* Yes, this is a real headstone. It’s in Goldfield, Nev., in the pioneer part of the cemetery. Is it real or a hoax? Well, library paste at the time did, apparently, have some nutritional value. There was wheat in it. It also often contained some substance that could be toxic, so it supposedly could kill a person if they ate enough. However, I haven’t been able to confirm if someone actually died from it and was buried there. But it’s a great story.