Bill Lichtenstein (born October 3, 1956) is an American print and broadcast journalist and documentary producer, president of the media production company, Lichtenstein Creative Media, Incorporated.
Lichtenstein began working in 1970 at age 14 as a volunteer and later as a part-time announcer and newscaster at WBCN-FM in Boston, Massachusetts. He later produced investigative reports for ABC News and public radio and television programs and documentary films on social justice issues as well as educational outreach campaigns. Lichtenstein and his company also made early use of emerging new media, including the 3-D virtual reality community Second Life.
He writes for such publications as The New York Times, The Nation, New York Daily News, Boston Globe and Huffington Post. From 1980 to 2006, Lichtenstein taught investigative reporting for TV and documentary film production at The New School in New York City.
His work has received awards including a Peabody Award; Guggenheim Fellowship; eight National Headliner Awards; CINE Golden Eagle; Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism; and three National News Emmy Award nominations.
Early life
Lichtenstein worked at WBCN (FM), one of the United States' original progressive rock radio stations starting while in junior high school, as a newscaster and on-air announcer.
He graduated from Brown University in 1978 with a degree in Political Science and English. While at Brown, Lichtenstein worked at WBRU, the 20,000-watt commercial radio station operated by Brown students, and he served as the station's program director in 1975. Lichtenstein received a M.S. degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979.
ABC News
Lichtenstein began his work in television as a writer for ABC and CBS Sports, including as Chief Writer for CBS's coverage of the 1979 Pan American Games.
From 1979 through 1986, Lichtenstein reported and produced investigative reports for ABC News 20/20, Nightline, and World News Tonight. He was part of the Emmy-winning team with Sylvia Chase and Jeff Diamond that uncovered a fatal flaw in the VW Beetle, and along with Stanhope Gould, Bob Sirkin, and Steve Tello, broke the story of the Atlanta Child Murders in 1979. He collaborated with producers Lowell Bergman and Andrew Cockburn on COINTELPRO: The Secret War, the first network news report on the FBI's covert program of dirty tricks used to disrupt and neutralize political activists, including actress Jean Seberg, and Black Panther Geronimo Pratt. He worked on American Held Hostage: The Secret Negotiations, a three-hour prime time ABC News special hosted by Pierre Salinger, that chronicled the previously unreported, extensive efforts by President Jimmy Carter to gain the release of the American hostages in Iran.
In 1983, he was nominated for three national news Emmy Awards, for Throwaway Kids, a nine-month investigation into abused and children in Oklahoma state juvenile institutions,
A 1985 Mother Jones magazine cover story, "How ABC Spikes the News: Three Reagan Administration Scandals that Never Appeared on World News Tonight," revealed that three stories produced by Bill Lichtenstein, including investigations into Reagan administration figures Sen. Paul Laxalt, Sec. of Labor Ray Donovan and USIA director Charles Wick were killed following pressure from the Reagan White House at the same time that ABC was seeking Reagan administration support to increase the maximum number of local TV stations that any one entity could own.
The events surrounding the three reports were detailed in Mark Hertsgaard's "On Bended Knee," and "Project Censored" cited the reports as "Three Stories that Might Have Changed the Course of the 1984 Election" in their annual top ten censored stories list in 1984.
Investigative Reporter
In 1986, Lichtenstein was one of the two show producers of the ABC late-night program Jimmy Breslin's People, featuring the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist.
Lichtenstein worked in 1986 for The Investigative Group, at the law firm of Rogovin, Huge and Lenzner, then out of house council for the CIA. Headed by former Watergate counsel Terry Lenzner, Lichtenstein worked with IGI on several investigations including tracking missing royalties for the Beatles' Apple Records.