My latest project is a podcast called Far From Home, which documents my unexpected adventures and chance encounters with interesting people around the world. The first season follow me on an 11,000 mile road trip I took across 21 countries in Europe and Asia as part of an annual charity event called the Mongol Rally. Please visit the podcast website for more information.
A multimedia, investigative reporting project launched in late 2015 in collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting and Montclair State University's NJ News Commons, with reporting partners including NJ Spotlight, WNYC, WHYY (Philadelphia), NJTV (NJ public television), and WBGO (Newark). Through a series of radio stories, television segments, and print articles, we explored the health, environmental, and economic costs of New Jersey's toxic, industrial legacy.
In October of 2012, I was doing occasional freelance reporting for WNYC / NJ Public Radio when I got a call from my editor early one Sunday. Weather forecasters were warning that a big storm was barreling towards New Jersey, so the station wanted me to head to the Jersey Shore to interview residents and business owners boarding up their windows and making preparations. That one afternoon turned into several days, as the waves came crashing ashore, causing massive flooding and widespread power outages, and destroying tens of thousands of homes. Throughout it all, I drove up and down the coast reporting live from the scene for a variety of local and national outlets.
In 2013, WNYC and NJ Spotlight -- a policy-oriented news website -- jointly hired me to provide in-depth, ongoing coverage of New Jersey's long-term recovery from the storm. Over the next two years, I produced over 100 articles and radio stories where I tracked the flow of federal aid money, looked into the Christie administration's handling of rebuilding efforts, and reported on how well the state is preparing for future storms, especially in light of threats presented by sea level rise and climate change. My coverage earned nearly two dozen awards, including a Peabody, which I shared with my colleagues at WNYC for my months-long investigation that found the state had misallocated disaster mitigation funding, giving millions to towns and cities thathad fairly little damage, while shortchanging severely flooded places like Hoboken, Jersey City, and Atlantic City by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The reporting forced state officials to completely revise their grant allocations and helped dozens of municipalities eventually get the funding they deserved.
For highlights of my print coverage of Sandy, visit the print section of my website. The following is a selection of the many radio stories I produced and interviews I gave during the two years I was covering this issue.
In September of 2010 -- eight months after Haiti's devastating earthquake -- I traveled to Port-au-Prince with several other reporters to cover the slow and rocky recovery process and the prospects for change in advance of the country's upcoming general election for president.