Russ Baker

Russell Warren "Russ" Baker, is an American investigative journalist. He is the author of a 2008 book, Family of Secrets, that outlines what it claims are connections between President George H.W. Bush and the Watergate scandal and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He is also the founder of WhoWhatWhy, a journalism website.

He has had articles in a variety of publications, including The Village Voice, The Nation and The Christian Science Monitor, but recently has been published mainly on the Internet, to his own website and to AlterNet.

After graduation from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Baker worked as a metro reporter with Newsday in New York City. While traveling abroad, he reported on tribal genocide in Burundi for a Dutch paper and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the fall of the Berlin Wall for CBS Radio and the Christian Science Monitor, and the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

In 1989, he became a New York correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor. He also wrote for the Village Voice in New York City, producing cover stories on corruption in the police union and the use of humanitarian international relief as cover for covert CIA operations. His report on the efforts of the Church of Scientology to recruit Michael Jackson aired on A Current Affair. He reported for George magazine on conflict between Scientology and the German government. He wrote a story about Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana, a leading opponent of President Bill Clinton, for Salon and profiled Ira Einhorn, the Unicorn Killer, for Esquire.