RESUME

JOURNALIST

2019-2025: Freelance journalist for publications includingThe Guardian, London Observer, and Sierra Magazine.

2017-2019: Editor in Chief, OC Weekly

2013-2017: Managing Editor, OC Weekly

1996-2013: News & Investigations Editor, OC Weekly

As a full-time investigative reporter and editor, I wrote for and managed a dynamic and hard-hitting alt-weekly newspaper. Work included hiring, supervising and editing section editors, staff writers, freelancers and interns. My reporting has also appeared inThe Atlantic, Salon, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera, LA Weekly, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the Washington City Paper. My investigative reporting has uncovered political corruption, environmental crimes, and civil rights violations, and has resulted in the prosecution and conviction of public officials including a Huntington Beach mayor and the release from prison of several wrongfully convicted individuals.

AUTHOR

Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books, 2006), which inspired the 2014 Hollywood film starring Jeremy Renner; Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (St. Martin's Press, 2010); The Weed Runners: Travels With the Outlaw Capitalists of America's Underground Marijuana Economy, (Chicago Review Press, 2013); Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Press and Hoodwinks Hollywood, (Simon & Schuster, 2016).

AWARDS

My journalism work has received dozens of national and local journalism prizes since the mid-1990s and has resulted in the release from prison of wrongfully convicted individuals as well as the prosecution of corrupt public officials. A sample gathering includes the 2014 Southern California Journalism Awards, Best Investigative Series, 2013 Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club Best Feature Story, 2012 Southern California Journalism Awards/LA Press Club Best Series; 2011 Association of Alternative Newsweekly (AAN) Awards, Best Feature Story, and inclusion in the 2008 Best American Crime Reporting anthology (Harper Collins).

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE

2025- Director of Communications for the University of Santa Barbara’s Division of Social Sciences.

2021-2025: News and features writer and communications specialist for the University of California, Irvine, UCI Medical Schooland UC Irvine’s Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing.

2006-Present: Film and television consultant. Provided research and writing for journalism-based Hollywood screenplays and as a TV story producer, including for the 2019 Netflix documentary "World's Most Wanted: "El Mayo" Zambada and History Channel's 2016 “U.S. War on Drugs” miniseries and upcoming Arte documentary on police and non-lethal crowd control.

2006-2010: Lecturer, Literary Journalism Department, UC Irvine. Instructed department majors on basic reporting and news writing skills and investigative journalism, with a special focus on long-form storytelling.

1994: Research Analyst, Local 11, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Los Angeles. Investigated hotel owners and management companies in downtown Los Angeles for citywide organizing campaign.

1992-1993: Intern, KCET's "Life & Times," LA Weekly and The Nation

EDUCATION

1995: Instituto Centro America, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Received advance-level language certificate for fluency in Spanish.

1992: Occidental College, Bachelor of Arts. Four-year co-chair of the college's Anti-Apartheid Coalition. Reporter and columnist for the campus newspaper, The Occidental. Co-founder of the school's first alternative paper, The Current Agenda. As a

1991: Richter Undergraduate Fellow. Lived in a Cape Town area township while researching South Africa’s educational crisis.

1991: Middlebury College, Japanese Language School.

1987: Operation Crossroads Africa, Lucea, Jamaica.