About Us
Our Mission
The Huffington Post Investigative Fund is an independent nonprofit journalism venture based in Washington, D.C. We aim to be an online innovator of investigative reporting by merging the classic watchdog function and traditional values of the press with the best tools of new media.
With an emphasis on the workings of Washington, we will seek to hold those in power accountable for their actions. We will investigate abuse, fraud or waste in government, business and other institutions. We will be relentless in following up our investigations and pushing for the highest impact. Many of our initial efforts will focus on the causes and fallout of the economic crisis and the ongoing struggle to reform the financial system.
Our Work
Our journalists will report in every possible medium -- text, video, audio and interactive graphics. We will use the Internet not only as a distribution channel but also as a laboratory to extend the reach of our reporting and to gather communities of interest -- including creating a network of citizen journalists who can help research and add personal stories to our work.
As a philanthropic venture, and in the open-source spirit of the Web, everything we publish on our Web site is free for the taking, to publish online or in print.
Our Staff
The I-Fund is a professional newsroom staffed by reporters and editors from many of the nation's most respected news organizations. Reporters and contributors are committed to the highest standards of accuracy, fairness and transparency as outlined by the code of ethics from the Society of Professional Journalists. Meet them here.
Our Corporate Structure and Funders
The Huffington Post Investigative Fund is an independent, nonpartisan venture. We are in the process of creating our own nonprofit institution. While we do so, the Tides Center, a nonprofit incubator, serves as our fiscal sponsor and provides administrative support.
We are affiliated with The Huffington Post, which has lent its name, provided partial financial support and has arranged to republish our work on its Web site. Other funders are the Atlantic Philanthropies, the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Markle Foundation and the Knight Foundation. Funding inquiries may be sent to npenniman [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (Nick Penniman), executive director.
The Investigative Fund's donors do not have a role in its editorial decisions.
Amanda Zamora
Amanda Zamora spent six years at The Washington Post as online editor and producer, developing enterprise projects with the investigative unit after stints on the foreign and metro desks. She was previously an online content producer and reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. Zamora was a fellow with the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism with an emphasis in Latino media studies from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2008, Zamora spent six months examining Virginia’s mental health system as a Knight Digital Media Fellow with the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at Ohio State University.
» azamora [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Amanda Zamora) or follow her on Twitter
Ben Protess
Ben Protess previously reported for ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news organization based in New York. His articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Politico. Protess also has worked with the investigative unit of CBS News in Chicago and as an investigative reporter for the North Lawndale Community News. He graduated from Northwestern University and received his master's in journalism from Columbia University’s investigative reporting fellowship program.
» bprotess [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Ben Protess) or follow him on Twitter
Christine Spolar
Christine Spolar has worked at the Chicago Tribune, CBS 60 Minutes II, The Miami Herald and The Washington Post, where she served as a member of the investigative team, a national correspondent in Los Angeles, and a foreign correspondent in Warsaw. At the Tribune, she reported from and managed bureaus in Jerusalem and Baghdad. She was also a correspondent based in London, Rome and Cairo. She has covered conflicts in the Balkans, Israel, Iraq and Lebanon and reported from across the Middle East, Iran and Africa. Her work at 60 Minutes II, a broadcast that investigated the loss of a U.S. pilot in the Gulf War, won an Emmy and honors from Investigative Reporters and Editors. She is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School and was a Kiplinger fellow at Ohio State where she earned a master's degree in journalism.
» cspolar [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Christine Spolar) or follow her on Twitter
Danielle Ivory
Danielle Ivory formerly was a multimedia producer and reporter for the American News Project. She has been a senior fellow and research director at Bill Moyers Journal and the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. She has also worked as a production assistant with Weekend Edition Sunday on National Public Radio, and as a reporter for The Nation, one of Thailand's national English-language newspapers. Ivory graduated from Princeton and earned her master’s degree at the University of Oxford.
» divory [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Danielle Ivory) or follow her on Twitter
David Heath
David Heath spent the past decade as an investigative reporter for The Seattle Times, where his work was three times a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He co-authored an investigation of conflicts of interest surrounding clinical cancer research at a Seattle hospital. Among the awards the series won was Harvard University's Goldsmith prize for investigative reporting, the George Polk award for medical reporting, the Gerald Loeb award, the Scripps Howard Foundation's public service award, the Associated Press Managing Editors' public service award and the Newspaper Guild's Heywood Broun award. Heath's recent expose on congressional earmarks was recognized with the Everett Dirksen award for best coverage of Congress from the National Press Foundation. Among his other previous honors was the John Hancock award for financial reporting. Heath graduated from Grinnell College and was a 2006 Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
» dheath [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail David Heath) or follow him on Twitter
Emma Schwartz
Emma Schwartz most recently worked in the investigative unit of ABC News, where she uncovered a secret payment by a Florida congressman to his former mistress. Before that she wrote about legal affairs for U.S. News & World Report and was a reporter with Legal Times, covering topics from the U.S. attorney scandal to the trial of Scooter Libby. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today, among other publications. She was a fellow with Loyola’s Journalist Law School in 2008 and is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
» eschwartz [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Emma Schwartz) or follow her on Twitter
Fred Schulte
Fred Schulte is a veteran investigative reporter who has worked for the Baltimore Sun and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist four times, most recently in 2007 for a series on Baltimore's arcane ground rent system. His other Pulitzer-nominated projects exposed excessive heart surgery death rates in veterans' hospitals, substandard care by health insurance plans treating low-income people and hidden dangers of cosmetic surgery in medical offices. He has received the George Polk Award, two Investigative Reporters and Editors awards, three Gerald Loeb Awards for business writing and two Worth Bingham Prizes for investigative reporting. Schulte is the author of Fleeced!, an expose of telemarketing scams that preyed mainly on the elderly. He was a 1997 Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow and has been a contract reporter for the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia.
» fschulte [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Fred Schulte) or follow him on Twitter
Gary Cohn
Gary Cohn has been an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, Lexington Herald-Leader and Bloomberg News. He began his career as a reporter for columnist Jack Anderson. At the Sun he shared the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for articles documenting the dangers to workers and the environment when old warships are dismantled. He has been a Pulitzer finalist twice -- for exposing how a CIA-trained Honduran army unit kidnapped, tortured and executed hundreds of suspected subversives and for reporting on conflicts of interest between academic researchers and pharmaceutical companies. Among other honors he has twice won the Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting as well as awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors, the George Polk Awards, Sigma Delta Chi and the Overseas Press Club. Cohn is also an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. He graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Keith Epstein
Keith Epstein has been a Washington-based investigative reporter for two decades, primarily for Business Week and The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. He has covered topics ranging from politics and drug companies to cyber-espionage and the insurance industry. His stories on lending practices that ensnare poor and unsophisticated borrowers led to changes in the practices of global microfinance. Among awards he has won or shared are the Barlett & Steele Award for Investigative Business Journalism; the SPJ investigative reporting award; the White House Correspondents Association award; and an Overseas Press Club of America citation. Epstein also has worked for The Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times. He studied literature and political science at the University of Pennsylvania.
» kepstein [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Keith Epstein) or follow him on Twitter
Lagan Sebert
Lagan Sebert has previously reported for the American News Project, National Public Radio and Current TV. Sebert graduated from Rhodes College with a degree in economics and international studies. He holds a master’s degree in journalism and public policy from American University. His thesis documentary from AU, "Busco Personas: Faces from Colombia's War," won the audience award for best short documentary at the 2008 AFI Film Festival.
» lsebert [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Lagan Sebert) or follow him on Twitter
Lawrence Roberts
Lawrence Roberts spent five years as investigations editor of The Washington Post and previously helped lead the business section during the dot-com boom and bust. He originally joined the newspaper as one of the founding editors of its Web site. He also spent a decade at The Hartford Courant and was a foreign correspondent in Spain for United Press International. Roberts has been an editor on numerous investigative teams including three that have won the Pulitzer Prize: the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal; the Cheney vice presidency; and the flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope. He is a graduate of Franconia College.
» lroberts [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Lawrence Roberts)
Nick Penniman
Nick Penniman merged his online documentary operation — the American News Project — with the Huffington Post Investigative Fund when he helped launch the Fund. He has formerly served as publisher of The Washington Monthly, associate editor of American Prospect magazine, D.C. director of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, and editor of TomPaine.com, program director of the Campaign for America's Future, director of the Alliance for Democracy and editor of the Lincoln Journal. He has served on multiple nonprofit boards, including the Homeless Empowerment Project and the Roosevelt Institution. He is a graduate of St. Lawrence University.
» npenniman [at] huffpostfund [dot] org (E-mail Nick Penniman)
Board of Directors
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. She is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of twelve books including the recently reissued Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America; Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe (2008); On Becoming Fearless....in Love, Work and Life (2006); and Picasso: Creator and Destroyer (1988). She is also co-host of “Left, Right & Center,” public radio’s popular political roundtable program. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that has quickly become one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2006, she was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. She serves on several boards that promote community solutions to social problems, including A Place Called Home, which works with at-risk children in South Central Los Angeles. She also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Archer School for Girls.
David Bohnett
David Bohnett is a philanthropist and technology entrepreneur who serves as Chair of the David Bohnett Foundation, which provides support for The Fund for Los Angeles; LGBT-related causes including graduate school leadership programs at UCLA, NYU and Harvard; voting rights and registration initiatives; handgun control; and animal research and rights. Bohnett is also Chairman of the Board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Board Member of the California Community Foundation and Trustee of amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Bohnett is founder and managing member of the private equity firm Baroda Ventures and is also CEO of OVGuide.com. He has been an active partner in Xdrive.com, Wireimage.com, Stamps.com and LowerMyBills.com, and held various positions in the software industry for Legent and Goal Systems. In 1994, he founded GeoCities.com, a media and e-commerce company that was acquired by Yahoo! Inc. in 1999. Bohnett has been recognized as Los Angeles Business Journal's Technology Leader of the Year, Time Digital's Top 50 Cyber Elite, and Entrepreneur of the Year for Southern California. His academic credentials include an M.B.A in Finance from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.
Fred Harman
Fredric W. Harman is Managing Partner of Oak Investment Partners, with a primary investment focus on Consumer Internet and Internet New Media. Harman also serves on the Boards of Aspect Software, Connexus Corporation, Demand Media, Federated Media, FRS, Knowledge Networks, Limelight Networks, MyLife.com, RazorGator, Rearden Commerce, Shop.com, Sutherland Global Services, and U.S. Auto Parts. Harman has led investments in aQuantive (acquired by Microsoft), Allyes (acquired by Focus Media), Campus Pipeline (acquired by SCT), Fastclick (acquired by ValueClick), Captura (acquired by Concur), Cobalt, Exodus, ILOG, IMS (acquired by Celestica) Inktomi, Pivotal, Primus Knowledge Solutions, Qpass (acquired by Amdocs), Quintus (acquired by Avaya), Sanmina/SCI, SportsGG and SPSS. Harman received an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business and a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University where he was a Hughes Fellow. He is also a co-owner of the Golden State Warriors and a Trustee of Sacred Heart Schools.
Leo Hindery
Leo Hindery, Jr. is Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners VII, LP, a New York-based media industry private equity fund which he founded in 2005 and which is a successor to six previous InterMedia investment funds that he formed beginning in 1988. The investments of those earlier funds were sold in 1998-1999. Hindery is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and from 2003 through December 2007 was Senate-appointed Vice Chair of the HELP Commission formed by an Act of Congress to improve U.S. foreign assistance. He is Vice Chair of the Paley Center for Media; a Trustee of New School University; and a Director of the Library of Congress Trust Fund, the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council, and Teach for America. Hindery is also an executive-in-residence at Columbia Business School, and a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia School of Journalism. Hindery has a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and is an undergraduate of Seattle University. Hindery has honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Emerson College and the Rabbinical College of America.
Rob McKay
Rob McKay is the Chairman of the Board of the Democracy Alliance and President of the McKay Family Foundation, which supports community-based organizations working for long-term social, political, and economic progress. Rob, along with his brother and parents, established the McKay Foundation in January 1992. In recent years, the family foundation has supported efforts to bring health care coverage and a living wage to low-income workers, and it has given grants to groups in California working on issues such as affordable housing, economic development, and voter engagement.
Steve Coll
Steve Coll is president of New America Foundation, and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. Previously he spent 20 years as a foreign correspondent and senior editor at The Washington Post, serving as the paper's managing editor from 1998 to 2004. He is the author of six books, including Eagle on the Street, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the SEC's battle with Wall Street (with David A. Vise, 1991); Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004); and The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century (2008). His professional awards include two Pulitzer Prizes. He won the first of these, for explanatory journalism, in 1990, for his series, with David A. Vise, about the SEC. His second was awarded in 2005, for his book, Ghost Wars, which also won the Council on Foreign Relations' Arthur Ross award; the Overseas Press Club award and the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book published on international affairs during 2004. Other awards include the 1992 Livingston Award for outstanding foreign reporting; the 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award for his coverage of the civil war in Sierra Leone; and the Overseas Press Club Award for international magazine writing. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude, from Occidental College in 1980 with a degree in English and history.
Advisory Board
Joan Konner
Dean Emerita and Professor Emerita of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Long-time TV producer and documentary filmmaker. Producer of more than 50 documentaries and many television series. Recipient of 16 Emmy Awards, the Peabody and the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcasting.
Fran Rodgers
Entrepeneur and independent media advocate. Founder of the corporate consulting firm WFD. Named one of the 25 most influential working mothers in the America by Working Mother magazine. Recipient of the Columbus Award for Discovery from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. National Winner of Entrepeneur of the Year Award in Social Responsibility (Inc Magazine and Ernst and Young).
Hedrick Smith
Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and editor. Producer and correspondent of more than 20 award-winning PBS prime time specials and miniseries. Author of several national best-selling books, including "The Russians" and "The Power Game: How Washington Works."
