International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

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Michael Bilton, Britain, has worked as an investigative journalist/film-maker for 35 years.

Michael Bilton, Britain

At The Sunday Times, Bilton covered war and crime as a foreign correspondent and focused on, in his words, “the darker side of human existence.” In addition, he is the author of three investigative books and the producer of several award-winning documentary films. Bilton is best known for his work on the Vietnam War. In 1989, he and Kevin Sim wrote and produced a PBS Frontline special, Remember My Lai, which won an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Golden Baton Award, a BAFTA in Britain as well as an International Emmy. Based on five months of traveling and interviews with Vietnamese survivors and the American soldiers present at My Lai, the program detailed their memories of the My Lai massacre and the government investigation that ensued. Their book, Four Hours in My Lai, received critical acclaim around the world. In 1998, Bilton produced The Search for the Yorkshire Ripper, a documentary profiling the long-unsuccessful investigation of a serial killer, which was nominated for a British Academy Award. That work became a book, Wicked Beyond Belief, which was released in February 2003. He has spent recent years working independently, mostly for The Sunday Times Magazine where he has covered issues as diverse as sexual harassment of women within the British police force; the Sandline private military company’s involvement with Papua New Guinea; and more recently the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in America, and the neglect by British Government of veterans from the 1982 Falklands War, who are suffering psychological trauma. He also has held three short-term teaching posts at colleges in the United States and Denmark.