Books that reveal important truths and elevate public debate

Meet the Fellows

Watchdog Writers Group Fellows are among the nation’s leading writers and thinkers. They are independent thinkers who produce deeply reported journalism that transcends the partisan and opinion-driven news cycle. Their books reveal important truths and help elevate and inform the most important public debates in the country.

Fellows 2025-2026

Molly O’Toole

Molly O’Toole is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, working on “The Route,” a nonfiction book on global migration through the Americas to the United States.

Alec MacGillis

Alec MacGillis is a senior reporter at ProPublica, where his focus in recent years has included gun violence, economic inequality and the post-pandemic crisis in public education.

Caleb Gayle

Caleb Gayle is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and a professor at Northeastern University.

Dan Kaufman

Dan Kaufman is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and the author author of “The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics” (W.W. Norton).

Ted Genoways

Ted Genoways is a two-time James Beard Award winner and author of six books, including “Tequila Wars: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico” (W.W. Norton, 2025).

Michelle García

Michelle García is a journalist who has written extensively about the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. identity, politics and the nation’s violent mythologies for the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications.

Fellows 2024 – 2025

Mya Frazier

Mya Frazier is writing a book that expands on her recent investigation for The New York Times Magazine into America’s housing crisis and the credit reporting system.

Molly O’Toole

Molly O’Toole is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, working on “The Route,” a nonfiction book on global migration through the Americas to the United States.

Alec MacGillis

Alec MacGillis is a senior reporter at ProPublica, where his focus in recent years has included gun violence, economic inequality and the post-pandemic crisis in public education.

Caleb Gayle

Caleb Gayle is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and a professor at Northeastern University.

Ted Genoways

Ted Genoways is a two-time James Beard Award winner and author of six books, including “Tequila Wars: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico” (W.W. Norton, 2025).

Fellows 2023

Alisa Roth

Alisa Roth is a contributor to Marketplace, NPR, and other outlets, who specializes in mental health, criminal justice and other social policy issues.

Sarah Smarsh

Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has covered socioeconomic class, politics and public  policy for The New York Times, National Geographic, Harper’s, and many other publications.

Mya Frazier

Mya Frazier is writing a book that expands on her recent investigation for The New York Times Magazine into America’s housing crisis and the credit reporting system.

Caleb Gayle

Caleb Gayle is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and a professor at Northeastern University.

Fellows 2022

Shoshana Walter

Shoshana Walter is writing a book that builds on her award-winning reporting for Reveal on unpaid work camps masquerading as rehab. Her book, “Untreated,” will chronicle the many problems plaguing the country’s addiction treatment system, how it got this way and how we could do better for the millions of people in the US struggling with addiction.

Michael Grunwald

Michael Grunwald is working on a book for Simon & Schuster about how to feed the world without frying the world. It’s about the food we eat, the farms that make the food, the forests that get cleared to make room for the farms, and the search for technological and political solutions that can prevent us from eating the earth.

Christopher Leonard

Writing a book about a company at the heart of American political and economic affairs.

Alisa Roth

Alisa Roth is a contributor to Marketplace, NPR, and other outlets, who specializes in mental health, criminal justice and other social policy issues.

Sarah Smarsh

Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has covered socioeconomic class, politics and public  policy for The New York Times, National Geographic, Harper’s, and many other publications.

Mya Frazier

Mya Frazier is writing a book that expands on her recent investigation for The New York Times Magazine into America’s housing crisis and the credit reporting system.