Our Staff

Madeleine Buckingham is the Center for Investigative Reporting’s chief financial officer. Previously, she was president and CEO, and served as chief operating officer prior to that. She has spent more than 30 years in senior finance and management positions in the publishing and tech industries, working for a range of publishing companies and internet startups, including Sony Corp’s internet incubator and International Data Group. When Madeleine doesn’t have her head buried in a set of financials, you can most likely find her trail running or kayaking, traveling, listening to live music or her immersed in a good book in front of a roaring campfire.

Jahna Berry is the Center for Investigative Reporting’s chief operating officer, based in San Francisco. Before joining the organization, Jahna was head of content operations at Wired, where she played a key role in developing strategies that increased digital subscriptions, and opened Wired’s first permanent retail store. Earlier in her career, Jahna was Mother Jones’ director of product and managed the publication’s award-winning 2016 digital redesign. The project helped Mother Jones win the Magazine of the Year award from the American Society of Magazine Editors in 2017. Jahna has been a writer and editor at several publications, including the San Francisco Business Times, the Arizona Republic, the Contra Costa Times (now called the East Bay Times), and the San Francisco Recorder. Follow her @jahnaberry.

Najib Aminy joined Reveal in 2018 and has worked as a production manager, associate producer, reporter, and producer. His reporting has landed him on Democracy Now, The Brian Lehrer Show, and Slate’s What Next podcast. His work at Reveal has earned him the George Polk Award, two Edward R. Murrow awards, two Gerald Loeb awards, multiple Investigative Reporters and Editors awards, and recognition as a DuPont-Columbia finalist. In a previous life, he was the first news editor at Flipboard, a news aggregation startup, and he helped build the company’s editorial and curation practices and policies. Before that, he reported for newspapers such as Newsday and the Indianapolis Star. Najib also created and hosted the independent podcast Some Noise, featured by Apple, the Guardian, and the Paris Review. He is a lifelong New York Knicks fan and is a product of Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism, and mainly works so he can feed his cat.

Fernando Arruda is a sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. As a multi-instrumentalist, he contributes to the music, editing, and mixing of the weekly public radio show and podcast. He has held four O-1 visas for individuals with extraordinary abilities. His work has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, Edward R. Murrow, Gerald Loeb, Third Coast, and Association of Music Producers awards, as well as Emmy and Pulitzer nominations. Prior to joining Reveal, Arruda toured internationally as a DJ and taught music technology at Dubspot and ESRA International Film School. He also worked at Antfood, a creative audio studio for media and TV ads, as well as for clients such as Marvel, MasterClass, and Samsung. His credits also include NPR’s 51 Percent; WNYC’s Bad Feminist Happy Hour and its live broadcast of Orson Welles’ The Hitchhiker; Wondery’s Detective Trapp; and MSNBC’s Why Is This Happening?. Arruda releases experimental music under the alias FJAZZ and has performed with jazz, classical, and pop ensembles such as SFJazz Monday Night Band, Art&Sax quartet, Krychek, Dark Inc., and the New York Arabic Orchestra. He holds a master’s degree in film scoring and composition from NYU Steinhardt. Learn more about his work at FernandoArruda.info.

Victoria Baranetsky is general counsel at the Center for Investigative Reporting (d/b/a Foundation for National Progress), where she advises the organization on its full range of legal activities, including counseling reporters on newsroom matters (newsgathering, libel, privacy, subpoenas), advising the C-level on business matters, and providing legal support to the board. She has litigated on various issues on behalf of the organization, including arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to CIR, Victoria worked at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the New York Times. She also clerked on the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds degrees from Columbia University, Columbia Journalism School, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University. She teaches at Berkeley Law School as an adjunct professor and is a fellow at Columbia’s Tow Center. She is barred in California, New York, and New Jersey.

Ari Berman is the national voting rights correspondent at Mother Jones and a reporting fellow at Type Media Center. He’s the author of Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics. He’s won the Sidney Hillman Foundation Prize for Magazine Journalism and an Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media. Follow him @ariberman.

Daniel Borges is a web developer at the Center for Investigative Reporting. He is based out of Mississippi and enjoys electronic music production.

Ben Breedlove is a web developer at the Center for Investigative Reporting. He is based in Indiana and has strong opinions about apples and tacos. Follow him on Twitter @bdbreedlove.

Jim Briggs III is a senior sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. He joined the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2014. Jim and his team shape the sound of the weekly public radio show and podcast through original music, mixing, and editing. In a career devoted to elevating high-impact journalism, Jim’s work in radio, podcasting, and television has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, IRE, Gerald Loeb, and Third Coast awards, as well as a News and Documentary Emmy and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Sound. He has lent his ears to a range of podcasts and radio programs including Marketplace, Selected Shorts, Death, Sex & Money, The Longest Shortest Time, NPR’s Ask Me Another, Radiolab, Freakonomics Radio, WNYC’s live music performance show Soundcheck, and The 7 and Field Trip from the Washington Post. His film credits include PBS’s American Experience: Walt Whitman, the 2012 Tea Party documentary Town Hall, and The Supreme Court miniseries. Before that, he worked on albums with artists such as R.E.M., Paul Simon, and Kelly Clarkson at NYC’s legendary Hit Factory Recording Studios. Jim is based in western Massachusetts with his family, cats, and just enough musical instruments to do some damage.

Jenny Casas is a senior radio editor for Reveal. She was previously a narrative audio producer at the New York Times. Before that, she reported on the ways that cities systematically fail their people, for WNYC Studios, USA Today, City Bureau, and St. Louis Public Radio. Casas is based in Chicago.

Russ Choma is a reporter in the Washington, DC, bureau of Mother Jones who covers money in politics and influence. He previously reported for OpenSecrets.org, the Investigative Reporting Workshop, and the New Hampshire Union Leader. You can reach him at [email protected].

Ashley Cleek is a producer for Reveal. She helped develop and launch Vice News’ flagship podcast, Vice News Reports. As a reporter, she has worked with This American Life, Vice, NPR, and Latino USA. Her work has won a national Edward R. Murrow Award, a Gracie Award, an International Documentary Association Award, and a Third Coast Award. She was a 2020 Livingston Award finalist. She has reported stories across the American South, Turkey, Russia, and India. Ashley is based in New York.

Zulema Cobb is an operations and audio production associate for the Center for Investigative Reporting. She is originally from Los Angeles County, where she was raised until moving to Oregon. Her interest in the wellbeing of families and children inspired her to pursue family services at the University of Oregon. Her diverse background includes banking, affordable housing, health care, and education, where she helped develop a mentoring program for students. Cobb is passionate about animals and has fostered and rescued numerous dogs and cats. She frequently volunteers at animal shelters and overseas rescue missions. In her spare time, she channels her creative energy into photography, capturing memories for friends and family. Cobb is based in Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, three kids, three dogs, and cat.

Rachel de Leon is a reporter and producer for TV and documentaries for Reveal. She’s worked as a videographer and producer for investigations about caregiver wage theft, fatal accidents at Amazon warehouses, and modern-day redlining. In 2018, she began researching cases of police arresting and charging young people with lying about rape, despite incomplete investigations and the use of questionable interrogation tactics. This became the Netflix original Victim/Suspect, which was released in 2023. De Leon graduated with a master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. She’s based in the Bay Area.

Anayansi Diaz-Cortes is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal. She most notably spearheaded After Ayotzinapa, a gripping investigative series that examines the mysterious disappearance of 43 Mexican college students in 2014. The project earned her an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and was named among the New York Times’ Best Podcasts of 2022.

With a commitment to shedding light on critical issues, Anayansi’s storytelling spans a wide spectrum, from exposing wage theft and the dangers of predatory online gaming to unraveling the complexities of the criminal justice system in Mississippi and the challenges of navigating high school life amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Her distinctive approach combines emotional depth with first-person narratives, captivating audiences while unearthing consequential truths.

Anayansi boasts an array of accolades, including an Emmy Award nomination, Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, Hillman Award, Third Coast Award, Overseas Press Club Award, and Gracie Awards.

Nikki Frick is the associate editor for research and copy for Reveal. She previously worked as a copy editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and held internships at the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and WashingtonPost.com. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was an American Copy Editors Society Aubespin scholar. Frick is based in Milwaukee.

Nathan Halverson is a senior reporter and producer at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Learn more about his work at NathanHalverson.com.

Nadia Hamdan (she/her) is a producer for Reveal. She has worked on a range of investigative stories, from the post-Roe health care crisis and the deadly consequences of US gun laws to the debate around reparations for Black Americans. She was part of the team that won an Edward R. Murrow Award for exposing how an extreme voter-fraud law in Arizona put someone away for one year for what many see as normal voting behavior. Previously, Nadia was a reporter for Austin’s NPR station, where she was awarded the Texas Gavel Award from the State Bar of Texas for an investigation into why sexual assaults are so hard to prosecute in Austin. She has also won a national Public Media Journalists Association award and multiple Texas Associated Press Broadcasters awards. Most notably, she once conducted an entire interview while riding a mule through downtown Austin.

Brian Hiatt is the marketing and membership director, based out of the San Francisco office. He leads Mother Jones’ efforts to earn the support—donations and magazine subscriptions—of online readers. Brian served a brief stint as a fisheries biologist after college before deciding he wanted to swim upstream alongside people, not salmonids. He became an organizer when he saw the internet’s rise lead to new ways nonprofits could engage their supporters (even before Facebook and Twitter!), and he consulted on digital strategy with leading nonprofits for nearly a decade before joining MoJo.

Kate Howard is an editorial director at Reveal, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Previously, she was managing editor at the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and spent nearly 14 years as a reporter before that. She is a member of the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and Louisville Public Media. Reach her at [email protected].

Jonathan Jones is a reporter and producer for Reveal. In his two decades in journalism, he has produced a series of investigations on topics ranging from eminent domain to the energy transition. He was the lead reporter for Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe, an award-winning seven-part series investigating the suspicious officer-involved death of a 17-year-old Black student. In 2018, Jones, along with colleagues at WNYC’s Snap Judgment, won Best Documentary Gold Award at the Third Coast International Audio Festival for “Counted: An Oakland Story,” which profiled those lost to violence in Oakland, California. In 2015, his exposé of Firestone’s operations during the Liberian Civil War for ProPublica and PBS Frontline was awarded two News & Documentary Emmy Awards for outstanding investigative journalism and outstanding research, as well as the top Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in the large multiplatform category. In 2013, he teamed up with A.C. Thompson of ProPublica and PBS Frontline on a yearlong investigation into abuse and neglect at the largest assisted-living company in the United States.

Marla Jones-Newman, the Center for Investigative Reporting’s vice president of people and culture, joined the organization in January 2022 and brings a wealth of experience in shaping high-performing cultures, implementing robust professional development programs, and employing best human capital practices to attract and retain talent. Marla is committed to supporting, growing, and advocating for our vital workforce. She is an alumnus of the Maynard 200 Executive Leaders track. Marla can be reached at [email protected].

Young Kim is the Center for Investigative Reporting’s internal systems developer. Young’s manifold responsibilities include translating print content and special projects to the web. His hobbies include 3-D artwork and bad poetry.

Jamilah King is an editorial director at Mother Jones. Previously, she was managing editor at BuzzFeed News, where she worked across business and editorial teams to build a revenue infrastructure. Before that, Jamilah was the race and justice reporter at Mother Jones and host of the Mother Jones Podcast, where her work was nominated for and won some very cool awards. A proud San Francisco native, Jamilah now spends most of her time in Brooklyn, where the rent is still high but the dog parks are quite nice.

Hannah Levintova is the special projects editor at Mother Jones. She reports on business, corporate accountability, debt, and financial inequality, and also leads the newsroom in building collaborative packages and investigations on these topics. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, where she was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business Journalism. Previously, she was a reporter in Mother Jones’ Washington, DC bureau covering politics and financial policy, and before that worked on the news desk at NPR, at the Washington Monthly, and for a stint as a FOIA officer at a federal agency. You can reach her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @H_Lev.

Melissa Lewis is a data reporter for Reveal. Her work has appeared in the Oregonian, the Los Angeles Times, and New York Times Magazine. She’s passionate about programming, data visualization, open source, Korean food, and libraries. You can reach her at [email protected] or via her website, melissa.news.

Julia Lurie is a senior reporter at Mother Jones who writes about child welfare, criminal justice, and addiction. She is a two-time finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists and was a 2022 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Her work has been featured in the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Newsweek, and on NPR. You can reach her at [email protected].

Nina Martin (she/her) is a reporter and editor for Reveal and Mother Jones, based in the San Francisco area. She has worked as a reporter and editor at numerous media outlets, including ProPublica, San Francisco and Health magazines, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, and BabyCenter.

Julianne McShane is Mother Jones’ news and engagement writer, focusing on daily news coverage and stories at the intersection of gender and inequity. Previously, she was a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital. She has also reported for the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Guardian. Follow her on X @JulianneMcShane and reach her via email at [email protected].

Michael Mechanic is a senior editor at Mother Jones and author of Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live—and How Their Wealth Harms Us All (April 2021, Simon & Schuster). Prior to MoJo, he was longtime managing editor for the weekly East Bay Express and a reporter and editor for other alt-weeklies and magazines, including the late Industry Standard. His writing has also appeared in the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, and Wired. He lives in Oakland with his wife and kids, a cat, a hedgehog, and too many musical instruments to master.

Chére Menard works in the San Francisco office as the Center for Investigative Reporting’s financial analyst. She earned a psychology degree from California State University, Stanislaus, and has had varied work experience from metal fabrication to food safety. She is an animal lover and an enthusiast of the outdoors, and she enjoys travel, food, and all forms of art, music, and culture.

Anna Merlan is a senior reporter at Mother Jones covering disinformation, technology, and extremism. She was previously a senior reporter at Vice and Gizmodo Media Group, and was on staff at the Village Voice and the Dallas Observer. Over her career, she’s frequently covered conspiracy theories, actual conspiracies, sexual violence, scams, cults, crime, politics, and new religious movements. She’s the author of the 2019 book Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @annamerlan; to reach her more securely, use a nonwork email or device to request her Signal number.

Julia Métraux (she/her) is a reporter and graduate of UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She is passionate about reporting on the lived experiences of disabled people and others who live with chronic health conditions, including some solutions to inequities. You can follow her on Twitter @metraux_julia and send her emails at [email protected].

Samantha Michaels is a senior reporter at Mother Jones who writes about the criminal justice system. Before coming to San Francisco, she worked as a journalist in Burma and Indonesia. Her writing has been published by theAtlantic, Global Post, and Outside, among others. Got a tip? Reach her at [email protected], and follow her on Twitter @sjmichaels.

Daniel Moattar edits and writes for Mother Jones on money, work, justice, policing, and movement politics. He used to be MoJo’s research editor, managing its fellowships and heading research teams. He has reported for the Guardian, the American Prospect, Vice, and other outlets, and published reviews and essays in Guernica, the Baffler, and the Nation. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter.

Jackie Flynn Mogensen is a reporter at Mother Jones’ New York City office. Before coming to Mother Jones, she earned a master’s degree in environmental communication from Stanford University and interned at the San Francisco Chronicle, where she focused on cannabis-related reporting and social media. You can reach Jackie at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @jackiefmogensen.

Michael Montgomery is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal who leads major collaborations and reports on America’s penal system, human rights and international trade, and labor exploitation. Previously he held staff positions at American Public Media, CBS News, and the Daily Telegraph, where he was a Balkans correspondent. Michael is a longtime member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a recipient of numerous national and international honors, among them Murrow, Peabody, IRE, duPont-Columbia, Third Coast, and Overseas Press Club awards. Contact him at [email protected] or @mdmontgomery.

Mark Murrmann is the Center for Investigative Reporting’s photo director. Mark came to the organization in 2007 with a background as a freelance editorial and documentary photographer. He studied photography at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and then in London as a student winner of the Alexia Foundation Photography Grant.

Brett Myers is an interim executive producer at Reveal. His work has received more than 20 national honors, including a George Foster Peabody Award, a George Polk Award, eight Edward R. Murrow Awards, an Overseas Press Club Award, a Robert F. Kennedy Award, two Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Competition awards, and others. Before joining Reveal in 2017, he worked at Youth Radio co-producing stories with teenage reporters for NPR. A long time ago, Brett was named one of the 25 best American photographers under the age of 25. He lives in the Bay Area and loves bicycles.

Inae Oh is the senior news and engagement editor at Mother Jones, where she focuses on breaking news, political blogging, and social media coverage. Prior to Mother Jones, she was the New York editor at Huffington Post. You can reach her at [email protected].

Missa Perron is the membership manager at the Center for Investigative Reporting. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international studies, Spanish literature and anthropology from Loyola University Chicago, a digital marketing certificate from General Assembly, and a professional certificate in marketing from UC Berkeley Extension.

Amanda Pike is the director of film and TV and head of Center for Investigative Reporting Studios. Recent films include the Netflix original documentary Victim/Suspect, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival; The Grab, which premiered on opening night of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival; and the Oscar-nominated short documentary Heroin(e) for Netflix, which premiered at Telluride. Her projects have garnered Emmy, Peabody, duPont-Columbia, and RFK awards, among others. Previously, she spent years producing documentaries around the world with a camera in hand. She is based in San Francisco.

Rob Pjetri is the Center for Investigative Reporting’s revenue operations manager. He most recently worked at Amazon, focusing on display advertising and marketing, and he’s deeply curious about how media shapes our lives and culture. Born and raised in New York, Rob is an incessant learner and a documentary geek. He loves diving into a wide variety of topics and will always pluck a guitar in his free time.

Steven Rascón is the production manager for Reveal. He has also produced the KQED podcast On Our Watch: New Folsom, a serial investigation into the death of two whistleblowers inside California’s most dangerous prison. Their reporting has aired on NPR stations such as Capital Public Radio, WHYY, and KCRW. He also helped produce the Peabody-nominated Reveal podcast series Mississippi Goddam. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.

David Ritsher is the senior editor for TV and documentaries for Reveal. He has produced and edited investigative documentaries for more than 25 years, on subjects ranging from loose nukes in Russia to Latino gangs in Northern California. His work has appeared on PBS, ABC News, National Geographic, Discovery, KQED, and other national broadcast outlets. Since joining the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2011, David has contributed technical creativity to numerous award-winning projects, including the feature documentary The Grab, which premiered at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival. Before CIR, he was the coordinating producer for Frontline/World for six broadcast seasons and championed its pioneering pre-YouTube efforts to publish original video journalism on the web.

Robert J. Rosenthal is CEO emeritus of the Center for Investigative Reporting. He joined Reveal as executive director in 2008, a position he held until 2017. Rosenthal worked for 22 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, starting as a reporter and becoming its executive editor in 1998. He became managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002. Before joining the Inquirer in 1979, Rosenthal worked as a reporter for the Boston Globe and the New York Times, where he was a news assistant on the foreign desk and an editorial assistant on the Pulitzer Prize–winning Pentagon Papers project. As a reporter, Rosenthal won numerous awards, including the Overseas Press Club Award for magazine writing, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for distinguished foreign correspondence, and the National Association of Black Journalists Award for Third World Reporting. Rosenthal has been a Pulitzer Prize judge four times and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in international reporting.

Michael I Schiller has worked for the Center for Investigative Reporting since 2013 as a multimedia reporter, producer, and creative director. His work spans radio, animation, visual design, and documentary film. The Dead Unknown, a video series he directed about the crisis of America’s unidentified dead, earned a national News and Documentary Emmy Award, national Edward R. Murrow Award, and national Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award. His animated documentary short film The Box, about youth solitary confinement, was honored with a video journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter, a San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Award, and a New Orleans Film Festival special jury prize, and it was nominated for a national News and Documentary Emmy for new approaches.

Daniel Schulman is Mother Jones’ deputy editor, news and politics. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Sons of Wichita (Grand Central Publishing), a biography of the Koch brothers. His new book, to be published by Knopf, chronicles the lives and legacies of a group of turn-of-the-century Wall Street titans who influenced the course of history and the rise of modern finance. Reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @danielschulman.

Dru Sefton is the office manager for all the Center for Investigative Reporting’s bureaus, based in San Francisco. She has a long reporting career in daily newsrooms, including the Kansas City Star, where she scored the first interview with President Clinton’s personal secretary Betty Currie, and USA Today, where she uncovered nationwide thefts of Baby Jesus statues from nativity scenes. Most recently she reported on public TV for Current, the national trade publication for public broadcasting.

Marianne Szegedy-Maszak is the Washington editorial operations director in the Washington, DC, bureau of Mother Jones. She has written for the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, the Los Angeles Times, Psychology Today, and Newsweek, among others. Formerly, she was a senior writer covering science and health at US News and World Report, a reporter for the New York Post, and an editor at Congressional Quarterly. She was also a professor of journalism at American University. She is on the board of the Center for Public Integrity and is the author of I Kiss Your Hands Many Times: Hearts, Souls, and Wars in Hungary. Reach her at [email protected].

Taki Telonidis has been with Reveal since 2016 and is an interim executive producer. Previously, Taki helped host Al Letson develop the public radio show State of the Re:Union. Taki was also the media producer for the Western Folklife Center, where he created more than 100 radio features for NPR’s All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, and three documentaries for public television. Before moving to the West, Taki worked at NPR headquarters in Washington, DC, where he was senior producer of Weekend All Things Considered between 1994 and 1998. His radio and television work has garnered a George Foster Peabody Award, three Rocky Mountain Emmy Awards, and the Overseas Press Club Award for Breaking News. He is based in Salt Lake City.