Marcus Stern (born April 30, 1953) is an American journalist who worked for the ''

Copley News Service Copley Press was a privately held newspaper business, founded in Illinois, but later based in La Jolla, California. Its flagship paper was ''The San Diego Union-Tribune''. History Founder Ira Clifton Copley launched Copley Press c. 1905, event ...

'' for nearly 25 years. In 2005 he launched the investigation that led to the

bribery Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Co ...

conviction of

Congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivale ...

Randy "Duke" Cunningham Randall Harold "Duke" Cunningham (born December 8, 1941) is a former American politician, decorated Vietnam War veteran, fighter ace, and ex-felon. Cunningham served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California' ...

, a Republican from

San Diego County, California San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the f ...

. His reporting won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006.

Early life and education

Journalism ran in Stern's family. His grandfather August "Gus" Stern was a copy editor at the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

''. His father Laurence Marcus "Larry" Stern also worked at the ''Washington Post,'' becoming assistant managing editor for national news. Marcus Stern attended

Woodrow Wilson High School (Washington, D.C.) , motto_translation = In days to come, it will please us to remember this , address = 3950 Chesapeake Street Northwest , region = Ward 3 , city = Washington, D.C. , zipcode ...

and graduated from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in psychology.

Reporting career

After using his psychology degree to work in several psychiatric hospitals, he turned to journalism at age 26. He worked for the ''San Pedro News-Pilot'' in California and the ''States News Service'' in Washington, D.C. In 1983 he landed a job covering the Los Angeles area from the ''Copley News Service's'' Washington bureau. During the 1990s he wrote extensively about immigration issues. That coverage won him the Katz Award (1998) from the

Center for Immigration Studies The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an anti-immigration think tank and a SPLC designated hate group. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham ...

and the James Aronson Award (1999) for the story "America's Immigration Dilemma". During the early 2000s he often reported from combat and disaster zones including Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan. He worked at the ''Copley News Service'' Washington bureau until 2007; the bureau closed in 2008. He then worked for ''

ProPublica ProPublica (), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit organization based in New York City. In 2010, it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize, for a piece written by one of its journalists''The Guardian'', April 13, 2010 ...

'' and ''

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corp ...

.'' He is currently an investigative researcher for Strategic Research. He earned the 2017

Gerald Loeb Award The Gerald Loeb Award, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was est ...

for Video for his contributions to ''"Cosecha de Miseria (Harvest of Misery) & The Source".''

Cunningham story

Stern stumbled across the Cunningham story while looking into congressional travel; unable to explain some of Cunningham's trips abroad, he did a "lifestyle audit" of Cunningham's finances and discovered a suspicious sale of Cunningham's home to a defense contractor for an inflated price. His story, published in the ''

San Diego Union-Tribune ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868. Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...

'' on June 12, 2005, did not involve any insider leaks or unnamed sources; it was all based on publicly available information such as real estate sales and company websites. Stern went on to write multiple articles about Cunningham's finances and associates, usually with the assistance of Pulitzer co-winner Jerry Kammer in San Diego. The stories resulted in government investigations, which ultimately led to the exposure of sweetheart deals and outright bribery involving Cunningham and defense contractors whose interests he supported in Congress. "Without Marc Stern's story there might not have been a Cunningham case," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern, one of the lead prosecutors. He considered Stern the "genesis of the investigation" and added "This is the first time in my 5-yearcareer I have predicated a case upon a news story." On July 14, just one month after Stern's first story, Cunningham announced he would not run for re-election, and in November he pleaded guilty to tax evasion, conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud in federal court in San Diego. Stern and Kammer were cited by name in the 2006

Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting This Pulitzer Prize has been awarded since 1942 for a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs in the United States. In its first six years (1942–1947), it was called the Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting – National. L ...

award given to the ''San Diego Union-Tribune'' and the ''Copley News Service.'' In 2005, Stern and Kammer, together with ''Union-Tribune'' reporter Dean Calbreath, also shared the

Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

for political reporting. Stern and Kammer also shared the 2006 Edgar A. Poe Award for excellence in news of national and regional importance, given by the White House Correspondents Association. Stern and his colleagues later wrote a book about the Cunningham affair, ''The Wrong Stuff: The extraordinary saga of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the most corrupt congressman ever caught''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stern, Marcus Living people 1953 births American newspaper reporters and correspondents Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners George Polk Award recipients University of California, Los Angeles alumni Woodrow Wilson High School (Washington, D.C.) alumni Gerald Loeb Award winners for Audio and Video