RECENT PROJECTS
BREATHLESS IN BROOKLYN (Mother Jones Magazine, Oct. 2007) One of the world's largest oil spills, more than one-and-a-half times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster, has been sitting under Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for more than half a century, while federal, state and local officials point their fingers and pass the buck.
DAN RATHER REPORTS: THE HIDDEN FACE OF MEXICO (Producer) An exclusive interview with EZLN spokesman Subcomandante Marcos.
CITY ADRIFT: NEW ORLEANS BEFORE AND AFTER KATRINA (Co-author) - This book, authored by the Center for Public Integrity exposes failure on the part of government and non-government agencies to respond to both the threat and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Published Spring 2007, by LSU Press.
DAN RATHER REPORTS: SURVIVORS OF THE STORMS (Producer) An hour-long documentary about the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
WAITING TO HAPPEN (Mother Jones Magazine, Aug. 2006) As the FAA outsources more of its manufacturing-and-repair oversight to the airline industry - and the industry outsources it to less-regulated or even overseas companies - safety concerns are mounting.
CBS NEWS: 60 MINUTES (1997 - 2005)
SKIN AND BONES (Producer) – How the human tissue business, largely unregulated and fueled by altruistic (but unwitting) donors, is making a handful of for-profit corporations rich, even though selling donated body parts is illegal.
MURDER IN THE SECOND DEGREE (Producer) – The story of how a world-famous SIDS researcher ignored signs of repeated child abuse in a two-year-old girl, and impeded an investigation of the girl’s mother, who eventually suffocated her to death. The DA’s office began an investigation of the hospital after the story aired.
THE INTERNATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL TRADE (Co-Producer) – A three-part investigation of the international drug business. Part 1: A case of 88 Haitian babies killed by medicine containing anti-freeze. The trail led through four countries to a company owned by the Chinese government; Part 2: The multibillion-dollar global trade in counterfeit medicines. Exposed the fraudulent credentials of the WHO official leading the fight against fake drugs; Part 3: The unexplained shortage of a life-saving drug. Discovered evidence that the supply was manipulated by manufacturers to increase profits and thwart regulators. Federal investigators and a Congressional Committee credited 60 Minutes with pressuring the companies to reveal secret business data. (Winner of the DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton for Broadcast Journalism and the Gerald Loeb Award for Business Reporting. Emmy Award nominee. ICIJ Award Finalist.)
CASH CROP (Co-producer) – Examination of how the Federal Crop Insurance program, designed to support destitute farmers, is in fact enriching the private insurance companies that operate the program unhindered by government oversight.
JUVENILE INJUSTICE (Co-Producer) – Expose of the forced confession and shoddy forensic evidence used to convict an 11-year-old Texas girl of capital murder. Three months after the report aired, the Texas Supreme Court overturned the conviction.
BAD MEDICINE (Co-producer) – How loopholes in the wholesale drug distribution system allowed potentially deadly counterfeit medicines to wind up on the shelves of legitimate pharmacies.
ARE WE SAFE? (Co-producer) – Interviews with government officials about the nation’s preparedness for a biological attack. Aired a week before the 2001 anthrax mailings began.
SECRETS AND LIES (Associate Producer) – An adopted boy's search for the truth about his mother's mental illness, which a prestigious Manhattan adoption agency kept hidden for over 20 years. (Emmy Award nominee.)
HAITI: FIVE YEARS AND A BILLION DOLLARS LATER (Associate Producer) – A look at US efforts to help reform Haiti’s justice system, five years after Operation Restore Democracy. Discovered that the American contractor hired by USAID had sent a convicted felon, who had once been disbarred, to help run the program, which ended in complete failure. After our report, the Haitian Government refused to renew its justice reform agreement with USAID.
NOT QUITE DEAD (Associate Producer) – Uncovered a controversial organ transplant method involving donors who might not yet be dead. Prompted a Federal investigation that supported every major point in the story. (IRE Award finalist)
MEDICAL TOURISTS (Associate Producer) – The story of how Third World countries are building world-class hospitals in an effort to attract American patients unable to afford medical care here at home.
CASE CLOSED? (Associate Producer) – A year after British nanny Louise Woodward was found guilty of second-degree murder, 60 Minutes reexamined the evidence with the help of a leading forensic pediatric neuropathologist. Revealed for the first time how the prosecution and the defense had misdiagnosed the cause of death and ignored evidence of prior abuse.
VOICE OF THE FARMER (Associate Producer) – The first-ever television investigation of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America. Exposed the huge salaries and stock options top officials pay themselves while family farmers across the nation go bankrupt. Prompted over 180 public interest groups to call for a Federal investigation.
GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT (Associate Producer) – Interviews with three of the hundreds of Muslim men arrested in the wake of the September 11 attacks – none of whom had any connection to terrorism whatsoever. The men suffered abusive conditions in prison before being released or deported. A year after the broadcast, a Justice Department internal investigation confirmed our major findings.
NEEDLES (Associate Producer) – Investigation of the way hospital group-purchasing organizations use an elaborate system of kickbacks and payoff to favor certain brands of hypodermic needles over others, regardless of safety. Led to major changes in the way group purchasers do business.
WHO IS JACK SPADARO? (Associate Producer) – Chronicled the efforts of an investigator at the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration to keep his job after exposing the agency’s lax oversight of the coal mining industry.
AN ISLAND OF SANITY (Associate Producer) – A visit to Jerusalem’s Haddasah Hospital, where Jewish and Arab doctors and patients live and work side by side, while deep-seated hatred rages all around them.
DEEP DARK SECRET (Associate Producer) – The story of a group of boys committed to an institution of so-called “feebleminded” children in the 1950s, despite being perfectly normal. The boys endured more than a decade of gulag-style conditions, including acting as unwitting guinea pigs in a scientific experiment involving radioactive food.
TITLE IX (Associate Producer) – How colleges are complying with the equal-opportunity law, not by adding more sports teams for women, but by cutting men’s teams in sports such as wrestling, which have no women’s counterpart.
COOKING THE BOOKS? (Associate Producer) – The personal story of James Alderson, who followed his conscience and blew the whistle on billions of dollars in Medicare fraud by his employer, Columbia/HCA.
CON MAN (Associate Producer) – A look at the inadequate efforts the Federal government is making to prevent “Canadian lottery” scams, in which fraudsters operating out of Canada bilk retirees out of their life’s savings.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE (Associate Producer) – Followed a race-discrimination lawsuit at the Savannah River nuclear processing plant. Black employees described an atmosphere in which they were passed up for promotions while being steered to jobs involving higher radiation exposure than their white counterparts.
THE INSIDER’S PRESCRIPTION (Associate Producer) – An explanation of parallel trade, the European system for importing cheap drugs from other countries. Included the first television interview with a drug company executive who breaking ranks with his industry on this issue.
GREYSTON BAKERY (Associate Producer) – How one charitable organization in New York is putting unemployable people to work making high-end luxury baked goods served in some of the finest restaurants in town.
QUEEN LATIFAH (Associate Producer) – The Phat Lady sings.
MSNBC: Producer, Internet Special Projects (1996)
THE INFOWAR MYTH – A look at the hollow threat of "information warfare." Revealed the ways in which the threat is inflated by the US Government and the computer industry in order to boost budgets and profits.
TOBACCO'S BLACK MARKET – Investigation of the tobacco industry's role in global cigarette smuggling. Subsequent investigations by governments and courts have backed up every substantial point in the story.
MQN PRODUCTIONS (1991-95)
HIGH STAKES IN CYBERSPACE (Frontline, 1995) – A look at the dangers of doing business in the Information Age. (Winner of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Coverage of a Continuing Story.)
JIHAD IN AMERICA (PBS, 1994) – An inside view of Islamist terror networks in the United States. Since September 11, 2001, the program has been cited numerous times by the press and public officials as a prescient warning that went unheeded. (Winner of the George Polk Award; Investigative Reporters & Editors “Tom Renner” Award for outstanding crime reporting; Headliner Award runner up.)
IS THIS ANYWAY TO RUN A GOVERNMENT? (Frontline, 1994) – An investigation of waste, fraud and inertia inside the United States Department of Agriculture, its resistance to reform, and the tragic result for family farmers and American taxpayers.
TOBACCO UNDER FIRE (ABC News Turning Point, 1994) – Exposed the US Government’s role in forcing Third World nations to open their markets to American cigarettes, and how cigarette companies exploit American farmers while secretly buying their tobacco overseas.
IN OUR CHILDREN'S FOOD (Frontline, 1993) – Bill Moyers examines the dismal history of pesticide regulation in America. Revealed how the chemical industry was attempting to derail a National Academy of Sciences report on the hazards of pesticides in children’s food. The study’s author credited this broadcast for the release of the study, which led to the historic Food Quality Protection Act. (Winner of Investigative Reporters and Editors Award; Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting; Society of Professional Journalists Award.)
WHO OWNS OUR GOVERNMENT? / THE MONEY TRAIN (Listening to America with Bill Moyers, 1992) – A two-part investigation of the impact of corporate donations on public policy and the 1992 presidential campaign. (Emmy Award nominee.)
HUMBLE ORIGINS (1989-91)
Freelance fact-checker for numerous publications, including Spy, Vanity Fair, Details and Allure.
Editorial Assistant, Harper's magazine.
B.A. in English, Boston College, 1989
PERSONAL
I live in Querétaro, Mexico, with my wife and our dog, and travel frequently to the United States. In 2006, I was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.
