Life

Born in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, he received a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

's Medill School of Journalism

Medill School of Journalism

The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in Journalism in the United States...

 in 1986. Barstow has worked for The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

since 1999, and has been an investigative reporter there since 2002.

He worked for The St. Petersburg Times in Florida, where he was a finalist for three Pulitzer Prizes: in 1997 for spot news; in 1998 for investigative reporting; and in 1998 for explanatory journalism.

In 2004, he shared the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service

The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service has been awarded since 1918 for a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalistic resources. Those resources, as well as reporting, may include editorials, cartoons, photographs, graphics,...

 with Lowell Bergman

Lowell Bergman

Lowell A. Bergman is an American investigative reporter with The New York Times and a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline...

. Their investigative reporting examined death and injury among American workers and exposed employers who break basic safety rules.

In 2009 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting

Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting

The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded since 1953, under one name or another, for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series in print journalism...

.

In his award-winning story in The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, headlined "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand", Barstow reported that the Department of Defense recruited over 75 retired military officers, some with undisclosed ties to defense contractors, to appear on major news outlets as military analysts commenting on the Iraq war and the case in its favor. He wrote, "Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse—an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." Although the Pentagon initially issued a statement exonerating the program, the Pentagon inspector general's office later said it was flawed, and the statement was withdrawn.

Hidden Hand story

Most American television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox: incidentally, these are the ones that were criticized in the report) have failed to either mention Barstow's name in their news reports, or talk about his investigations that suggest the officers whose views they aired were biased. Nevertheless, after Barstow won the Pulitzer, he opined that his story had prompted some improvements in the networks' practices.

External links

• Biography at The New York Times