writing

"To say that there aren't women in shark science is utterly ridiculous," a Black female marine biologist told me. So I asked both Discovery's Shark Week and National Geographic's Sharkfest why they focused on white male shark scientists in their marketing and casting.

This piece won an L.A. Press Club 2021 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award.

Chef Evan Funke travels to Italy to learn how to make rare shapes of pasta by hand, a tradition that’s dying. I interviewed him and the producers of this new Quibi documentary show.

Sea Shepherd activists went to the Faroe Islands to try to stop whaling, a tradition that goes back centuries. Aboard their ship was an Animal Planet film crew.

This piece won the Society for Professional Journalists’ Sunshine State Award for magazine feature reporting.

I traveled to Indiana to profile one of the stars of 1990s television: Double Dare host Marc Summers. He was performing in an autobiographical play that told stories from his life I wasn't aware of, a performance that I wrote was "both biography and a triumph of vulnerability, a very public rejection of the fear of being stigmatized after sharing his OCD diagnosis."

In this essay in Vulture, I explored Survivor’s clear, unambiguous illustration of sexual harassment, and the show's many failures in its handling and presentation of real-life events.

The Biggest Loser returned, promising that it had changed. I investigated whether or not its formula and format was still causing harm to its participants and the public.

On location in Samoa, I explored for All Things Considered about what it takes to create a reality TV challenge.

I reported on Food Network, which has evolved into a home for reality TV competitions and personalities, not instructional cooking—and whether Netflix's food shows represent an existential threat.

In my review of The Real World: Atlanta, a rebooted version of the show produced for Facebook, I looked at the show's history, from seminal unscripted TV show to drunken mess.