Background
Barstow, David was born on January 21, 1963.
investigative reporter journalist
Barstow, David was born on January 21, 1963.
Degree in Journalism, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 1986.
Born in Boston, he received a bachelor"s degree from Northwestern University"s Medill School of Journalism in 1986. Barstow has worked for The New York Times since 1999, and has been an investigative reporter there since 2002. He worked for The Saint St. Petersburg Times in Florida, where he was a finalist for three Reporting Pulitzers: spot news reporting in 1997, investigative reporting in 1998.
And explanatory journalism in 1998 (now called explanatory reporting).
One of three stories submitted for the Investigative Reporting Pulitzer was "Message Machine: Behind television Analysts, Pentagon"s Hidden Hand" (April 20, 2008). 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 television 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exonerating the program, the Pentagon inspector general"s office later said it was flawed, and the statement was withdrawn. Most American television networks (American Broadcasting Company, Columbia Broadcasting System, National Broadcasting Company, Microsoft and National Broadcasting Company, Cable News Network 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.
Married; 2 children.
