RSVP: juliehirano@berkeley.edu

In April, David Barstow described in The New York Times how Wal-Mart’s highest executives covered up evidence of systematic bribery by Wal-Mart de Mexico, it’s largest and most important foreign subsidiary. The story triggered investigations by the Justice Department, the SEC and Mexican authorities, along with at least a dozen lawsuits by Wal-Mart shareholders, including several major pension funds. Wal-Mart says it expects to spend at least $100 million this year alone handling the legal fall-out.

David Barstow, a senior writer at The New York Times, is the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes.

In 2009, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for “Message Machine,” his series about the Pentagon’s secret campaign to influence coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2004, he and Lowell Bergman were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for articles about employers who committed egregious work place safety violations.

Mr. Barstow joined The Times in 1999 and has been a member of the newsroom’s investigative unit since 2002.

Prior to joining The New York Times, Mr. Barstow worked at The St. Petersburg Times in Florida, where he was a finalist for three Pulitzer Prizes. Before that, he worked at the Rochester Times-Union in upstate New York and the Green Bay Press-Gazette in Wisconsin. Mr. Barstow, a graduate of Northwestern University, grew up in Concord, Mass.

READ THE NYT ARTICLE HERE: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/business/at-wal-mart-in-mexico-a-bribe-inquiry-silenced.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0