David S. Hilzenrath

David Hilzenrath joined POGO as editor-in-chief in June 2012.  Before that, he was a journalist for The Washington Post.

At POGO, Hilzenrath has overseen or conducted investigative reporting on topics such as:

• A federal giveaway of offshore drilling rights.
• The troubling record of offshore drilling safety systems since Deepwater Horizon.
• Weaknesses in FDA oversight of prescription drugs.
• The pharmaceutical industry's influence over the FDA.
• Then CIA director Leon Panetta’s disclosure of Top Secret information about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
• Systemic problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
• Prosecutorial misconduct at the Department of Justice.
• The revolving door at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• A mutiny among guards and other security lapses at the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan.

Hilzenrath has led POGO’s investigative staff to nine awards for excellence in journalism, including the Robert D.G. Lewis Watchdog Award, a Sigma Delta Chi award, and three prizes for investigative reporting.

In 2017, he was a lecturer at Georgetown University, where he developed and taught the course “Investigating the Federal Government.”

As a reporter on The Washington Post’s financial desk, he wrote extensively about the intersection of business and government. He reported on the financial crisis, the regulation of the financial industry, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the policing of Wall Street. He probed subjects as diverse as the finances of presidential candidates, offshore banking and money-laundering, executive compensation, the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the workings of Congress, federal tax policy, and accounting fraud. He wrote about corporate scandals from Enron and WorldCom to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bernie Madoff, and he spotlighted systemic conflicts of interest in the auditing of Corporate America.  He has reported in depth on Obamacare and the health care system. 

He was a contributing author of Landmark: The Inside Story of America’s New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All (Public Affairs, 2010).  His honors while at The Post included the Morton Mintz Award for Investigative Reporting and the Bill Pryor Memorial Grand Prize for Writing.  He has appeared on radio and television, including NPR, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, and C-SPAN.

Hilzenrath studied at the University of Michigan through the program now known as the Knight-Wallace Fellowship.  He is an honors graduate of Harvard College, where he majored in government.