Bogdanich, Walt 1950-

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BOGDANICH, Walt 1950-

PERSONAL: Born October 10, 1950, in Chicago, IL; son of Walter and Helen (Chabraja) Bogdanich; married Stephanie Saul; children: Nicholas. Education: University of Wisconsin-Madison, B.S., 1975; Ohio State University, M.A., 1976.

ADDRESSES: Office—The New York Times Company, 229 W. 43rd St., New York, NY 10036.

CAREER: Compass, Hammond, IN, reporter, editor, 1974–75; Dayton Daily News, Dayton, OH, reporter, 1977; Cleveland Press, Cleveland, OH, reporter, 1977–79; Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, reporter, 1980–84; Wall Street Journal, New York, NY, reporter, 1984–88, Washington correspondent, 1989–93; ABC-TV, New York, NY, producer of Day One, 1993; CBS News, New York, NY, investigative producer for 60 Minutes; New York Times, New York, NY, investigations editor of finance and business desk, 2001–.

MEMBER: Investigative Reporters and Editors (member of board of directors, 1988–89).

AWARDS, HONORS: George Polk Award, Long Island University, 1980; Overseas Press Club Award, 1983; Pulitzer Prize for newspaper series, 1988, for national reporting, 2005.

WRITINGS:

The Great White Lie: How America's Hospitals Betray Our Trust and Endanger Our Lives, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1991.

SIDELIGHTS: Walt Bogdanich has had a long and distinguished career in investigative journalism, both in print and as a producer for such television programs as 60 Minutes. In 2001, he returned to print journalism as a business-affairs editor for the New York Times, earning his second Pulitzer Prize for exposing coverups of railroad accidents. Turning to the healthcare industry, Bogdanich has explored another kind of coverup; the difficulty involved in forcing hospitals to reveal their mortality rates for various operations. In The Great White Lie: How America's Hospitals Betray Our Trust and Endanger Our Lives, he discusses the reasons behind this reluctance. In addition to malpractice, fraud, and over-prescribing tests, he also describes understaffing and poor training. Whether from greed, simple mismanagement, or shortages of supplies or personnel, hospital administrators often provide substandard care that can and does have fatal consequences. "While the precise extent of such failings remains unknown, one of the most disturbing aspects of Bogdanich's book is the lengths to which the health-care providers and regulators, and, of course, those who represent them, will go to keep the rest of us from becoming informed consumers of the services they provide," noted John Crewdson in Washington Monthly. While Bogdanich recommends a system of national health care and greater oversight by Medicare, he has no overall solution to all these problems. "But why should Bogdanich have a solution to offer when no one else does? It seems quite enough that he has provided us with an illumination of the problem," concluded Crewdson.