WASHINGTON, D.C., June 30, 2009 — The Center for Public Integrity’s board of directors has elected five new members representing diverse backgrounds in investigative journalism, new media, public service, and business.

At the Center’s June board meeting in Washington, the board welcomed to their ranks: Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent; Dan Emmett, chairman of the board of directors for commercial real estate firm Douglas Emmett, Inc.; Charles Lewis, the Center for Public Integrity’s founder and currently executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University’s School of Communication; Olivia Ma, news manager and member of the news and politics team at YouTube; and Dr. Gilbert Omenn, director of the Center for Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics and the Proteomics Alliance for Cancer Research at the University of Michigan.

“The Center for Public Integrity is enormously fortunate to have these five new board members who each bring unique perspectives, talents, and leadership that will advance the Center’s mission as one of the premier nonprofit investigative journalism organizations in the world,” said Executive Director Bill Buzenberg. “They join a dedicated and collaborative group of directors who support and shape the Center for Public Integrity’s efforts to promote transparency, accountability, and the health of our democracy.”

Ms. Amanpour is widely recognized for her international reporting that has spanned the world’s many hotspots, including Iraq, Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans, and the United States during Hurricane Katrina. She has received nine Emmy Awards, an Edward R. Murrow Award for Distinguished Achievement in Broadcast Journalism, two George Foster Peabody Awards, two George Polk Awards, a Courage in Journalism Award, a Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival Gold Award, and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. She was named a Fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists and is also the recipient of the 2008 International Matrix Award from the Association for Women in Communications. Prior to her current position, Amanpour was a correspondent and reporter for CBS News.

Mr. Emmett is co-founder of Douglas, Emmett and Company, an integrated commercial real estate management and leasing company, and Douglas Emmett Realty Advisors, which grew during the 1990’s into a large manager of institutional real estate funds. Based in Santa Monica, California, Emmett received his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 1961 and his J.D. degree from Harvard University in 1964.

Mr. Lewis founded the Center for Public Integrity in 1989 and served as its executive director until January 2005. He is the founding president of the Fund for Independence in Journalism, a support organization for the Center, and is currently the executive editor of the new Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University’s School of Communication. Prior to his founding the Center, Lewis left a successful career as an investigative reporter for ABC News and as a producer of the CBS News program 60 Minutes. During Lewis’ leadership at the Center, it published roughly 300 investigative reports and 14 books, its projects received global media coverage, and its work was honored more than 30 times by national journalism organizations.

Ms. Ma is the news manager at the online video site, YouTube. Since its founding in 2005, YouTube has become the world’s third most trafficked website, after Google and Yahoo!. She manages YouTube’s news programming and works with professional news organizations, amateur journalists, and citizens to document events happening around the world. Last fall, Ma launched YouTube’s first major journalism program, Project: Report, a contest for aspiring journalists, produced with the Pulitzer Center, and she has worked on many of YouTube’s political initiatives during the 2008 presidential election. Prior to joining YouTube, Ma worked for Plum, a social media-sharing website where she was the product manager and community specialist. Ma is a graduate of Harvard University where she oversaw production of Current, a national student newsmagazine, published in partnership with Newsweek.

Dr. Omenn is director of the Center for Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics and the Proteomics Alliance for Cancer Research at the University of Michigan. Omenn is also a professor of internal medicine, human genetics, and public health at Michigan, where he served as executive vice president for medical affairs and as chief executive officer of the University of Michigan Health System from 1997 to 2002. Omenn was dean of the School of Public Health and professor of medicine and environmental health, at the University of Washington, Seattle, from 1982-1997. He was also the associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget during the Carter administration. He chaired the Presidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management in the 1990s. Omenn has a B.A. from Princeton University, an M.D. from Harvard University, and a genetics Ph.D. from the University of Washington.

All of the Center’s award-winning investigative journalism can be found at http://www.publicintegrity.org.