Reporter Peter Zuckerman won the Livingston Award for his coverage of a pedophilia scandal within an Idaho Boy Scouts council (featured in this and last week's EXPOSÉ: "In a Small Town"). At 26, he was one of the youngest journalists ever to win the award.

After winning the award, Zuckerman wrote up 10 tips for young journalists. Rule number 8: "Learn the secretary’s kids’ names and the janitor’s birthday. Secretaries who like you will go out of their way to get you access. So will janitors."

Tag(s): SAIC
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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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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.

Tag(s): Iraq , SAIC , defense , military
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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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