Betty Medsger

• Professor Emeritus of Journalism, San Francisco State University

Betty Medsger is an investigative reporter, author, photographer, producer, media critic and educator.

In March 1971 as a Washington Post reporter, Medsger was one of five recipients – three journalists and two members of Congress – of copies of FBI files stolen by a group of anonymous individuals called the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI. Medsger was the only recipient to make the files public. In contrast, journalists at The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times returned the files to the FBI, as requested, as did Sen. George McGovern (Democrat of South Dakota) and Rep. Parren Mitchell (Democrat of Maryland).

The first FBI files to ever become public, they revealed unprecedented FBI spying on students, academics, antiwar and civil rights activists, African American individuals and organizations and other Americans. One of the stolen files revealed the existence of one of the FBI's deepest secrets, a series of programs, most of them illegal, known as COINTELPRO (for Counter Intelligence Program). The programs utilized a range of methods to disrupt American political organizations, including using disinformation to destroy people FBI director J. Edgar Hoover disliked, setting up violence between individuals and organizations, having FBI agents and informers giving false trial testimony under oath that led to false convictions and even, in at least one instance, setting up murder.

Stories about the revelations in the stolen files led to:

Unprecedented calls for an investigation of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI.
The first national discourse on the role of intelligence agencies in a democracy
A national consensus that henceforth such agencies, previously never subject to either official oversight or journalistic investigation, should be held accountable.
Both houses of Congress conducted the first congressional investigations of all intelligence agencies and established permanent intelligence oversight committees.
In one of the most powerful reforms following the revelations, Congress strengthened the Freedom of Information Act in 1974. After that, journalists and scholars were able to base articles and books on original files from these agencies.
Medsger went on to teach journalism practice and ethics in an extensive academic career.

She is a founding member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and has served on the board of the Center for Investigative Reporting.

She is also the author of four books, including“The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI,” which details the theft of the COINTELPRO files from the FBI's office in Media, Pennsylvania.

• –present Former reporter, Washington Post
• –present Emeritus Professor, San Francisco State University

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