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August 10, 2007

Broadcast: "Nice Work If You Can Get It"

EXPOSÉ's "Nice Work If You Can Get It" airs tonight on PBS. Check local listings.

>> Producer Joe Rubin talks about working with veteran investigative reporters Scott Higham and Robert O’Harrow, the legacy of "Deep Throat," and a very important parking garage. Read his producer notes here.


August 09, 2007

Meet the Reporters

Assistant managing editor Jeff Leen knows it was a good decision to pair Scott Higham with Robert O’Harrow, Jr. for their reporting on Department of Homeland Security spending. With over 40 years of reporting experience between them, Higham and O’Harrow are undeniably strong investigative reporters, and, simply put, says Leen, “two good reporters are better than one.” Higham, a cop’s son (a path he almost pursued himself), is comfortable talking to people on the street, cultivating sources. O’Harrow is good with technology, whether sifting through databases or digging up web pages that have been taken down by people because they don’t want anybody to see what used to be up. His reporting partner kids, “he’d be a great CIA agent or NSA spook.” “As they’ve worked together, each has become more like the other,” says Leen, “there’s been kind of almost a perfect blending of skills.”

>>For more from the reporters on working together as a team, check out EXPOSÉ’s web-exclusive interview with the pair.


August 08, 2007

"Nice Work If You Can Get It" Available Online

Billions of dollars in government spending meant to make us safer after 9/11. Airport screeners, portal radiation monitors, explosive detection systems, and an elaborate electronic network to track visitors and ease legitimate travel using fingerprint readers.

This week on EXPOSÉ, the story of two reporters who followed the money flowing out of the Department of Homeland security and found case after case of failed programs.

>> Read The Washington Post’s original reporting on "The High Price of Homeland Security." View The Washington Post’s graphic presentation on where the “billions of dollars worth of contracts for security systems aimed at preventing another terrorist attack” have gone.

>>And explore Higham and O’Harrow’s recent and ongoing coverage on the federal contracting beat, focusing on the politics and the GSA.

Blog content provided this week by the EXPOSÉ production team.


July 12, 2007

Muscle (and mind) power

Halliburton. Lockheed Martin. Raytheon. Meet the other top ten federal contractors hired to do heavy lifting for the Department of Defense -- and find out what they've been up to lately.

1. Lockheed Martin Corp.
2. Boeing Co.
3. Northrop Grumman Corp.
4. General Dynamics Corp.
5. Raytheon Co.
6. Halliburton Co.
7. L-3 Communications Holdings
8. United Technologies Corp.
9. SAIC
10. Bechtel Inc.


July 11, 2007

Web premiere: "Friends in High Places"

You've probably never heard of SAIC before. That's okay. SAIC prefers you know nothing about how it -- one of the most powerful and highest paid government contractors -- operates. In the next episode of EXPOSÉ, the esteemed investigative reporting duo Donald Barlett and James Steele explore the inner workings of Science Applications International Corporation and reveal a world of Washington insiders moving smoothly between this mysterious company and the federal government.

>> The original reporting for "Friends in High Places" was published in a March 2007 VANITY FAIR article entitled "Washington's $8 Billion Shadow."

>> Read reports on SAIC at the Center for Public Integrity (part of their broader coverage of contractors working in Afghanistan and Iraq entitled “Windfalls of War”) and Sourcewatch.


July 10, 2007

Preview: "Friends in High Places"

Tomorrow on the EXPOSÉ site: the online premiere of "Friends in High Places." With the Federal government’s increasing reliance on private corporations for military and intelligence projects, many government contractors have already become household names – but there is a multi-billion dollar company, one that has received more private government contracts than any other, that you’ve probably never heard of: Science Applications International Corporation. SAIC, as it is known, has a workforce of 44,000, annual revenues that reached $8 billion in 2006, and a list of current and former board members that reads like a who’s who of political and military heavyweights. In a story for VANITY FAIR, the venerable investigative team of Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele pull back the curtain of government contracting to reveal that even though "several of SAIC's biggest projects have turned out to be colossal failures," in the end, the company always manages to get paid.

>> Watch the full episode tomorrow on the EXPOSÉ site.


EXPOSÉ Blog

A Companion Blog to Exposé, produced in association with CIR.