Scott Higham
Scott Higham is an American investigative journalist and author who documented the corporate and political forces that fueled the opioid epidemic, in addition to conducting other major investigations. He is a five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and won the Pulitzer twice with his colleagues at The Washington Post. He is a member of The Post’s investigative unit and the co-author of two books.
Scott Higham
Stony Brook University, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
Investigative Reporter
The Washington Post
Two Pulitzer Prizes
Early life[edit]
Born in Queens, New York, Higham grew up on Long Island. He is the son of a New York City homicide detective stationed in the Fort Apache precinct in the South Bronx and an airline secretary and homemaker from Winthrop, Mass. He graduated from Stony Brook University with a B.A. in history and an M.S. from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Higham also earned an A.S. in criminal justice at Suffolk County Community College.[1]
Career[edit]
Higham began his journalism career as the editor of his college newspaper, The Stony Brook Press. He then worked as a news clerk for Newsday and as a stringer and copyboy for The New York Times. After graduating from Columbia, he worked at the Allentown Morning Call, the Miami Herald and The Baltimore Sun.[1]
Higham joined The Washington Post in 2000[1] and has conducted numerous investigations for the news organization, including an examination of the D.C. foster care system, abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison and waste and fraud in Homeland Security[2][3][4] contracting. The foster care series with Sari Horwitz and Sarah Cohen won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2002.[5] The Abu Ghraib investigation was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting,[5] and the series on contracting with Robert O’Harrow Jr. won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award[4] for large newspapers. Higham has also investigated the Guantanamo Bay Detention camp and conflicts of interest on Capitol Hill.[6]
Higham spent six years examining the opioid epidemic as a lead reporter for The Washington Post. The first series revealed the corporate influences behind the opioid epidemic and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2020[7] for its “unprecedented insight into America’s deadly opioid epidemic.” A second series on the rise of fentanyl was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2023.[8] The Pulitzer Board called that project an “exhaustive investigation” that exposed “the government’s failure to address the epidemic of addiction.” He won numerous awards with Lenny Bernstein of The Washington Post and Bill Whitaker, Ira Rosen and Sam Hornblower of 60 Minutes for investigations into the causes of the opioid epidemic.[9]
Books[edit]
Higham and Sari Horwitz co-authored the book Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery. The non-fiction book chronicles the 2001 disappearance of Washington, DC intern Chandra Levy, whose remains were found one year later in an isolated area of the city's 2,800-acre (11 km2) Rock Creek Park. The book was a 2011 finalist for an Edgar Award,[10] sponsored by Mystery Writers of America.
They also co-authored the critically acclaimed book, American Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry. Bob Woodward called the book “an eye-opening, shocking and deeply documented investigation of the opioid crisis by two great reporters.”[11]
Note: "The Whistleblower" and "Too Big to Prosecute" were also finalists for the Gerald Loeb Award and the Scripps Howard Journal Award.[1]