It's possible that you've never heard of Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. As reporters, they keep a low public profile. They are, some might say, "old school" investigative reporters – relishing the opportunity to plow through documents and databases to produce comprehensive investigations. Last week's EXPOSÉ spotlighted the duo's recent inquiry into one of the defense department's highest-paid “body shops." But Barlett and Steele have been exposing government and corporate malfeasance since 1971, when they started working together at the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER -- a tenure that lasted 26 years until they moved to TIME magazine. Then, last year, TIME laid off more than 600 people in a budget crunch. The veteran reporters were among those let go -- a move that many decried as evidence of the downfall of investigative journalism in a rapidly shrinking industry.

Now contributing editors at VANITY FAIR, Barlett and Steele are digging back in and doing what they do best: hard-hitting investigative reporting. After careers that produced prize-winning investigations -- merited two Pulitzers and two National Magazine Awards, among other awards – they have set journalistic benchmarks for more than 30 years. A few of the highlights:

• In 1972, they analyzed more than 1,000 cases of violent crime in Philadelphia for “Crime and Injustice." It was the largest computer-assisted project of its time.

• Their PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER newspaper series "America: What Went Wrong" dissected the nation's ongoing recession and was so popular the paper received more than 400,000 requests for reprints. The nine-part series was published as a book in 1992.

• A TIME magazine series in 1998 exposed government economic incentives to businesses as a form of "corporate welfare" that turned "politicians into bribery specialists, and smart business people into con artists."

• In 2004, the two set out to diagnose how porous the U.S.-Mexico border actually was. Their investigation for TIME revealed that the border had grown less, not more, secure since 9/11.

Check back later this week for web-exclusive video of the pair discussing their work together over the past 30 years.

Tag(s): Donald Barlett , James Steele , computer-assisted reporting
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EXPOSÉ's "Friends in High Places" airs on PBS tonight. Check local listings for your area. Watch the reporting duo Barlett and Steele as they unveil the inner workings of SAIC -- one of the most powerful defense contractors in the country.

>> Coming soon: Barlett and Steele talk about how investigative journalism has changed over the years in a web-exclusive interview.

Tag(s): Donald Barlett , James Steele , SAIC
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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.

Tag(s): Donald Barlett , James Steele , SAIC , defense
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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.

Tag(s): Donald Barlett , Iraq , James Steele , SAIC , defense , military , national security
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