Twitter: @timothywschwab

Email: timschwab2020 at protonmail

Email: timschwab2020 at gmail

My forthcoming book (Henry Holt Books), “The Bill Gates Problem,” is now available for pre-order. The book builds on an investigative series I published in 2020 and 2021, which was funded through an Alicia Patterson reporting fellowship. This series won an Izzy Prize (from Ithaca College) and a Deadline Club Award (from the Society of Professional Journalists), and was a finalist for a Mirror Award (from Syracuse University). The Nation nominated my series on Gates for a Pulitzer.

My reporting on Gates has appeared in The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review and the British Medical Journal, and represents some of the only investigative journalism ever published on Gates. One focus of my writing has been to interrogate the weak public debate surrounding the foundation, which stems in part from the fact that Gates funds many of its would-be critics in journalism (here, here and here) and academia. I have also examined the colonial blindspots in Gates's giving, and the dearth of government regulations and oversight over the foundation, even as the charity sometimes acts almost like a government, for example playing an outsize and controversial role in the pandemic (here, here and here) and in climate change.

My reporting on Gates proceeds from other reporting I've published on the interface of private interests and public policy (here and here), the failures of journalism to scrutinize structures of power (here and here and here), and undisclosed conflicts of interest in science, including at the National Academies of Sciences (here, here and here).

Earlier in my career, I worked as a journalist for two daily newspapers and for the watchdog group Food & Water Watch, where my research was profiled by the New York Times, Le Monde and myriad other news outlets.