Charles Lewis is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. He founded The Center for Public Integrity and several other nonprofit organizations and is currently the executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University School of Communication in D.C.
He was previously an investigative producer for ABC News and the CBS news program 60 Minutes. He left 60 Minutes in 1989 and founded the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), a nonprofit news organization. In 1997, he led the creation of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which focuses on cross-border crime and corruption. CPI was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for investigative reporting, with ICIJ winning 2017 in the category of explanatory reporting for the “Panama Papers” scandal.
As a bestselling author, Lewis has been called "a watchdog in the corridors of power" by the National Journal and "the godfather of nonprofit investigative journalism."
The Wall Street Journal said that "with the founding of the Center for Public Integrity in the 1980s... probably did more than anyone else to launch institutional nonprofit journalism in America."
He was a Ferris Professor at Princeton University in 2005, a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University in the spring of 2006, and is currently a tenured professor of journalism at American University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the 2014 book is 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity In 2018, he was awarded the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence by Harvard's Nieman Foundation.
Early life and education
Charles Reed Esray Lewis III grew up in a middle-class family in Newark, Delaware, where he attended public schools and graduated from Newark High School in 1971. As a senior, he was elected president of the school’s student government association, and he also wrote for the student newspaper, the Yellowjacket Buzz. It was around this time he became an Eagle Scout.
Lewis majored in political science at the University of Delaware. He worked weeknights in the sports department of the Wilmington News Journal newspapers, writing stories and a weekly column. In the spring of 1974, he served as a paid intern in the Washington office of Senator William Roth (R-DE). He graduated with honors and distinction in 1975. In June 1977, he received a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington, D.C.
Lewis is married to Pamela Gilbert, a consumer-protection lawyer and former executive director of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. They live in the Washington, D.C., area. He is the father of two children, Cassandra Lewis Slattery, an award-winning playwright and author, and Gabriel Gilbert Lewis, a college film student.
Career
In October 1977, ABC News Vice President Sander Vanocur hired Lewis to be a reportorial producer (off-air reporter) in the newly created Special Reporting Unit, based in Washington, D.C. He provided research, reporting, and production assistance for all of the ABC News national programs. Stories he worked on included attempted presidential assassinations, prospective Supreme Court nominees, FBI misconduct, and Washington corruption scandals such as ABSCAM. He also worked on investigating civil rights murders in Alabama during the 1960s, culminating in a two-part 20/20 television news exposé, narrated by Vanocur.
CBS 60 Minutes
In early 1984, CBS News, in New York, hired Lewis as an associate producer for its news magazine program 60 Minutes. He was assigned to work with senior correspondent Mike Wallace, and was promoted to full producer. Over the next nearly five years, Lewis associate produced two investigative segments with Wallace and produced eight investigative segments, two of which received Emmy nominations. Many of the reports generated legal threats against the program and CBS News.
During the preparation of his last story, "Foreign Agent," both Wallace and 60 Minutes executive producer Don Hewitt forced Lewis to remove from his script the name of former Commerce Secretary Peter G. Peterson, a close personal friend of Hewitt's. Lewis deeply resented the internal censorship and quit 60 Minutes "in the midst of a four-year contract, with a family to support, a mortgage to pay, and virtually no savings."