Michael Hudson: An investigative journalist and a slight procrastinator

Michael Hudson is responsible for reporting and editing ICIJ’s recent investigation the FinCEN files. These stories reveal how global banks use money laundering and the damage it’s caused. (Photo Credit: Michael Hudson)

Michael Hudson’s father was a high school basketball coach and he attended his father’s basketball games at a young age. He would get to see the crowds make noise and get excited at what was going on in the court. But his favorite part of the experience might not have been the game, but the coverage of it

“The next morning, I would grab a newspaper and read about what had happened,” Hudson said. “To me that was sort of this amazing idea, that you can be at some event and then somebody by the next morning has written up what happened.”

His love for journalism continued in college where his desire to research large, complicated issues paid off in the long run. During the last 40 years of his career, Hudson reported on multiple investigative pieces that have held some of the world’s most powerful institutions accountable. Hudson now works as a senior editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

One of the most recent stories Hudson has worked on.

He recently led ICIJ’s World Bank investigation “FinCEN Files,” a series of stories that the role global banks play in industrial scale money laundering, and the consequences of it.

Before that he worked on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Panama and Paradise papers investigations, a series of stories that showed how companies use tax havens to legally avoid paying taxes.

The Panama Papers used an interactive website to show how powerful world leaders were connected to each other.

Nearly every story ICIJ works on requires the input of hundreds of reporters from across the world. It is a cross collaborative effort where newsrooms gather data to work on large stories together. They even go as far as to release the stories at the same time.

He is most proud of his coverage on subprime lending from the 1990s to the late 2000s. His stories almost didn’t get published due to a lack of editor interest.

“I had to fight to get it out there and there were not a lot of other journalists who were interested in it,” Hudson said. “I sort of knew it was important. I didn’t know how important, I didn’t know that eventually the subprime mortgage market was actually going to be the thing that precipitated this huge financial crash. But I knew it was important because real people were being hurt, they were being taken advantage of, losing their homes, being put deeper in debt than they could afford.”

A documentary Michael Hudson appears in.

Hudson’s reporting has appeared on multiple well-respected newspapers such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. Hudson prefers investigative journalism more than traditional deadline heavy reporting since it allows him to dig deeper into complex stories, he also admits he has a small issue with procrastination.

“I feel like I need the time to think things through, track down additional sources, do the reading, do the real legwork to figure out what sort of going on,” Hudson said.

His style of work led him to stepping down from his position at the Associated Press as the Global Investigations editor, he prefers the smaller more streamlined newsroom at ICIJ.