Seth Freed Wessler

Journalist

Seth Freed Wessler is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary maker.

Seth Freed Wessler

Journalist

Seth Freed Wessler is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary maker.

Why Did Ferguson Erupt? The Answer Depends on Your Race
FERGUSON, Missouri - On Tuesday night, a group of long-time residents fanned out across Ferguson’s tree-lined neighborhoods to deliver 3,000 lawn signs: “I Love Ferg” they read, with a red heart in place of the word love. Their campaign was spearheaded by Brian Fletcher, mayor of Ferguson from 2005 to 2011, who in recent days stationed himself at Corner Coffee House, a popular haunt in a redeveloped part of town, to receive $20 bills and personal checks from a steady stream of supportive residents.
NBC News
Ohio Woman Kicked Off Welfare for Not Reporting She Was In a Coma
Kimberly Thompson, 43, says she was lying in a hospital bed when she found out that she would no longer receive government assistance. The letter from the county shocked her: "They basically cut me off of benefits for not reporting I was in a coma," she says. For a decade, Thompson worked packing boxes in Columbus warehouses for $10 or $12 an hour.
NBC News
'Condo Takeover Schemes' Can Pose New Foreclosure Threat
When Marilyn Mack received an email from a company she’d never heard of before asking her to send money, she assumed it was a scam. The December 2012 email from A Sweet Lemonade LLC told her to “please provide the amount of the condo fee and bank instructions,” according to legal documents Mack’s lawyer submitted in court.
NBC News
Police Pay Gap: Many of America's Finest Struggle on Poverty Wages
In the aftermath of the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August, police officers from throughout St. Louis County were dispatched there to respond to mounting protests. Though the officers were doing the same jobs, they were paid starkly different wages, some as low as $10.50 an hour.
NBC News
In Ferguson, Fear Is Common Denominator for Police, Protesters
For the last few months, 21-year-old Ferguson resident D. Hampton has been sleeping in hotels and apartments with other protesters who took to the streets after the police shooting of Michael Brown. He's one of a number of Ferguson activists who stay in what they call "safe houses." With all the angry attention the protesters have faced in person and in public, said Hampton, who uses a pseudonym, "it's not safe to go to stay with our family.
NBC News
Endless Debt: Native Americans Plagued by High-Interest Loans
Short on cash six years ago, Carlotta Chimoni drove from her home in Zuni Pueblo to a small-dollar lender in nearby Gallup and took out a several hundred-dollar installment loan. “We had a family emergency and needed money,” said Chimoni, whose $22,000 teacher’s assistant salary is the only predictable income in her 11-person family.
NBC News
Kids in Court: Is It Time to Raise the Age for Criminal Responsibility?
LOUIS, Mo. Deshaun Barbee moves around this city like a man chased. He dodges the police, has used an alias, and once borrowed a relative's driver's license to hide his identity. Barbee, 19, lives like this because of events that took place when he was underage: Two years ago, he was caught riding the commuter train without a ticket.
NBC News
Featured
American Dream Home: What's the Middle Class Without a House?
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. There was a feeling Tonya Adair had when she would return to her house after a day teaching math in a Milwaukee middle school. Her three kids would be upstairs, and she'd take a moment to herself. "I guess it was just a sense of being at ease with nobody watching, no landlord." Adair, 47, says now.
NBC News
Shift Change: "Just-in-Time" Scheduling Creates Chaos for Workers
When a day care worker told Journelle Clark that her five-year-old daughter often cried because she missed her mother, Clark realized something was really wrong. The 32-year-old works unpredictable hours arranging window and wall displays at an Ann Taylor LOFT in Manhattan, never knowing what her schedule—or her paycheck—will be.
NBC News

About

Seth Freed Wessler

Seth Freed Wessler is an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker whose accountability reporting on immigration, federal law enforcement and human rights has led to legislative and policy reform, spurred lawsuits, and inspired advocacy campaigns. Seth has won more than a dozen national awards for his reporting including a Peabody Award and the Hillman Prize. He was a finalist for the National Magazine Award and is the director of THE FACILITY, an Oscar-shortlisted documentary.

Seth was a staff reporter at ProPublica, NBC News and Type Investigations, and has contributed to The New York Times, This American Life, Reveal, Mother Jones, the Smithsonian Magazine, The Nation, WNYC, and others. He has been a visiting scholar at NYU’s Arthur Carter Journalism Institute, a Soros Media Fellow, and a Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good and has taught graduate courses at CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

Seth also won a American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award, a National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award, an Investigative Prize from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, a National Association of Hispanic Journalists Award for Investigative Journalism, the Sidney Award, the Online Journalism Award, the Deadline Club Award for Investigative Audio Reporting, the John Bartlow Martin Award, the John Jay/Guggenheim Award for Criminal Justice Reporting and the Izzy Award. His Academy Award-shortlisted documentary premiered on MSNBC and was an official selection at film festivals including IDFA, DocNYC, DocsMX, Double Exposure, Full Frame and AFI Fest.

Seth's email is open for tips and ideas.