AP names Michael Hudson as its new investigative editor

NEW YORK — The Associated Press on Thursday named Michael Hudson, a senior editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists whose work probed offshore financial secrecy and the origins of the 2008 economic crisis, as its new global investigations editor.

Hudson and ICIJ shared the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting with McClatchy and the Miami Herald for their work on the Panama Papers project. He will guide AP's teams of investigative journalists around the world in his new role, starting in November.

Hudson will be based at AP's headquarters in New York City and report to Managing Editor Brian Carovillano.

Hudson, 55, has been an editor and reporter at ICIJ since 2012, where he also investigated the global trade in human tissue and led an investigation into practices at the World Bank. He served as both a reporter and editor on the Panama Papers project, a global project based on a trove of 11.5 million leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm.

The project, facilitated by ICIJ, marshaled a complex network of journalists at more than 100 news organizations in 80 countries, using data journalism and virtual collaboration tools to expose financial secrecy.

At AP, Hudson will guide a team that includes more than two dozen AP investigative reporters, editors and data journalists who focus on topics ranging from state spending abuses to campaign scandals to corruption in sports.

In 2016, an AP team won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and other awards for exposing labor abuses in the seafood industry in Asia. AP journalists have also in recent years been recognized for their investigative work by the Overseas Press Club, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the George Polk Awards, the Goldsmith Investigative Reporting Prize, the Gerald Loeb Awards and more.

"This kind of journalism is at the core of what AP does, and our investigative reporters and editors have been doing extremely strong work," said Sally Buzbee, AP's senior vice president and executive editor. "By bringing them together in this way, we aim to create even more of that great work by fostering more collaboration among our journalists around the world."

Before joining ICIJ, Hudson worked as a reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, The Wall Street Journal and The Roanoke Times in Virginia. His work has also appeared in Forbes, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Le Monde, El País and many other publications. He has won IRE, Overseas Press Club and George Polk awards.

Hudson spent two decades reporting on the mortgage industry and banking fraud, and his work in the years leading up the global financial crisis prompted the Columbia Journalism Review to call him the reporter who "beat the world on subprime abuses." His 2010 book, "The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America — and Spawned a Global Crisis," traces the rise and fall of the subprime home-loan business.

"Throughout his career, Mike Hudson has proven himself to be a fearless reporter and editor," Carovillano said. "Whether he's investigating Wall Street banks or corrupt foreign governments, Hudson has embraced and excelled at some of the most difficult and treacherous work that we do as journalists. That makes him a perfect match with the AP."

Hudson, a Virginia native, lives in Brooklyn. He and his wife, novelist Darcey Steinke, have a grown daughter and son.

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