David Olinger is a projects reporter at the Post. He has written extensively about gun shows and the gun industry and contributed to the Post staff's reporting on the Columbine High School massacre, which earned a Pulitzer prize for breaking news coverage in 2000. He also has reported on abuses in the Colorado foster care system and other issues. His reporting on unscrupulous investors who persuade homeowners facing foreclosures to deed houses to them won the 2002 Sidney Hillman award for newspaper writing.

Olinger, a native of Rapid City, S.D., previously reported for the St. Petersburg Times, where he won state and regional awards for a series on the lax regulation of gun dealers. He also worked at the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire.