Lowell Bergman

Who is Lowell Bergman?

Lowell Bergman is the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Professor of Investigative Reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and director of the Investigative Reporting Program, where he has taught a seminar dedicated to investigative reporting for over 15 years. He is also a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline. Bergman’s career spans nearly five decades, most notably as a producer, a reporter and then the director of investigative reporting at ABC News and as CBS News producer for 60 Minutes.

The story of his investigation into the tobacco industry was chronicled in the Academy Award–nominated film The Insider. From 1999 to 2008, Bergman was an investigative correspondent for The New York Times. Creating collaborative investigative projects using broadcast, print and the Web became his specialty. Bergman has received honors for both print and broadcasting, including the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, awarded to The New York Times in 2004 for "A Dangerous Business" which detailed a record of worker safety violations coupled with the systematic violation of environmental laws in the cast-iron sewer and water pipe industry. That story is the only winner of the Pulitzer Prize to also be acknowledged with every major award in broadcasting. The recipient of numerous Emmys, Bergman has also been honored with five Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver and Golden Baton awards, three Peabodys, a Polk Award, a Sidney Hillman Award for Labor Reporting, a Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism, the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism, a Mirror Award from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Career Achievement from the Society of Professional Journalists.