Lowell Bergman (born July 24, 1945) is an American journalist, television producer, and professor of journalism. Bergman was a producer, reporter, and director of investigative reporting at ABC News. Later a producer for CBS’s 60 Minutes, he left that network in 1999 as the senior producer of investigations for CBS News. He founded the investigative reporting program at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, where he taught for 28 years. He was also a producer and correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline.

Bergman's investigation into the tobacco industry was depicted in Michael Mann’s The Insider, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards and featured Al Pacino as Bergman. From 1999 to 2008, Bergman was an investigative correspondent for The New York Times.

Reporting across multiple platforms

Bergman established an alliance between The New York Times and Frontline after leaving network news in the late 1990s. This collaboration resulted in a series of stories, including coverage of California’s energy crisis, the country’s war on drugs, and gold industries, the post-9/11 hunt for “sleeper cells” in America, and recent Al Qaeda’s attacks in Europe. The collaboration also produced a number of award-winning projects with print, broadcast, and online components. Websites prepared in large part by Bergman's students accompanied many of these projects, including “Secret History of the Credit Card”, “Al Qaeda's New Front”, “The Enemy Within”, “The Real CSI,” and “News War.” “News War,” which examined the challenges facing the mainstream news media, drew on more than 80 interviews with key figures and behind-the-scenes access to news organizations.

Collaborating with other New York Times reporters, Bergman helped produce a series of articles detailing the financial arrangements between Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton, both before and after Cheney's retirement as chief executive officer of that firm.

Awards and honors

Bergman has received honors for both print and broadcasting reporting. The New York Times won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service The series, "A Dangerous Business", detailed a record of worker safety violations and environmental law violations in the iron sewer and water pipe industry.

Bergman is the recipient of numerous Emmys and other honors, including six Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver and Golden awards, three Peabodys, a Writers Guild Award, the National Press Club's Consumer Journalism Award for Television on the credit card industry, a George Polk Award, a Sidney Hillman award for labor reporting, and the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Career Achievement from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Interviews

  • "Smoke In The Eye: a Talk With Lowell Bergman", PBS Frontline (1999). "There's a major difference between All The President's Men and The Insider", Lowell Bergman said of the comparison between the 1976 film on Watergate and Hollywood's version of the events depicted in Frontlines report, "Smoke in the Eye". "In All the President's Men, the editors and reporters are heroes. That's not the case here."
  • "Long March through the Institution" of Television Journalism; Conversation with Lowell Bergman. Part of the "Conversations with History" series, Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley with Harry Kreisler, (2001)
  • On September 27, 2006, Bergman appeared on The Colbert Report.
  • On February 27, 2007, Bergman was interviewed by Terry Gross of WHYY's Fresh Air about the Frontline documentary "News War: Secrets, Spin and the Future of the News." The four-part series, which Bergman co-produced, is about the mainstream news media and the political, legal, and economic forces acting on it. The third installment looks at how the pressure for profits and shifting advertising dollars are affecting the news business.
  • On February 27, 2007, Bergman was interviewed by Marketplaces Kai Ryssdal about how the Internet has changed journalism.
  • On June 11, 2007, Bergman was interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos for CBC Television's news magazine, The Hour.
  • On January 26, 2009, Bergman discussed Halliburton's record $560 million settlement with the Justice Department and the SEC for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act with NPR's All Things Considered. Bergman's documentary on bribery in international commerce aired on PBS's Frontline. Frontline/World: The Business of Bribes | PBS April 7, 2009.

References

  • Lowell Bergman's home page at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
  • CNN on The Insider, (November 1999).
  • A chronology of the 60 Minutes decision not to air the tobacco industry exposé. (1999).