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Lowell Bergman

Professor
Phone: 510-643-1332
Email: Lowell Bergman

Lowell Bergman is a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series "Frontline" and the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Professor of Investigative Reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism where he has taught a seminar dedicated to investigative reporting for over 15 years. Bergman is also a consultant to “Frontline”, advising them on the expansion of their hard news reporting, as well as an advisor to non-profit investigative news organizations like the Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica. For a decade from 1999-2008 he was an investigative correspondent for the New York Times.

Since assuming the Logan Professorship, a three-quarter time position, the U.C. Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program under Mr. Bergman's leadership has established its own offices which include the west coast editorial and production facilities for the PBS programs Frontline and Frontline/World. The offices also house the Investigative Reporting Post Graduate Fellows.

This newly inaugurated year-long program is without peer at any academic institution in the nation. It is designed to nurture young journalists who want to pursue a career in in-depth public service reporting by providing them with a salary, benefits and editorial guidance.

Bergman's career spans nearly four decades from the late 1960s for a weekly newspaper in San Diego to a freelancer for Ramparts Magazine and then as an editor of Rolling Stone. In 1976, he was part of a group of reporters who investigated the assassination of Don Bolles, a reporter for The Arizona Republic, and in 1977 he was a co-founder of The Center for Investigative Reporting.

From 1978 until 1983, Bergman was a producer, reporter, and then the Director of Investigative Reporting at ABC News. He was one of the original producers of "20/20."

In 1983, Bergman joined CBS News as a producer for the weekly news magazine "60 Minutes," where over the course of 14 years he produced more than 50 stories on subjects ranging from organized crime, international arms and drug trafficking, to terrorism, and corporate crime. The story of his investigation of the tobacco industry for 60 Minutes was chronicled in the Academy Award nominated feature film "The Insider".

After leaving CBS News as its senior investigative producer in 1998, he forged an alliance between The New York Times and the PBS documentary program "Frontline". The collaboration included the participation of his graduate students working both on the films and print stories as well as extensive web sites. Stories as part of this alliance included an investigation into corruption in Mexico, the East Africa bombings, the California energy crisis and the role of Enron, a series on the roots of 9/11, as well as subsequent stories on the terrorist threat inside the United States and Europe.

Working with his students, The New York Times and Frontline, Mr. Bergman also reported award-winning investigations of the credit card business, and worker safety in the iron foundry industry.

He has received honors in 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 egregious worker safety violations coupled with the systematic violation of environmental laws in the iron sewer and water pipe industry. That story, which appeared as both a print series and a documentary, is the only winner of the Pulitzer Prize to also be acknowledged with every major award in broadcasting.

The recipient of numerous Emmys, Mr. Bergman, as a reporter and producer, has 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, the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism and the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Career Achievement from The Society of Professional Journalists. In September 2009, Bergman was named one of the 30 most notable investigative reporters in the U.S. since World War I in George Washington University’s massive six-volume Encyclopedia of Journalism, edited by leading journalism scholar Christopher H. Sterling.

Bergman graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1966 and was a graduate fellow in philosophy at the University of California, San Diego until 1970.

Lowell Bergman has lived for the last 35 years in Berkeley, California. He is married to Ms. Sharon Tiller, a senior producer with “Frontline”. The couple has five children and four grandchildren.

Published Stories

Courses taught by Lowell Bergman