Michael Grabell
Michael Grabell is a senior editor with ProPublica. Grabell has previously written about economic issues, labor, immigration and trade. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist.
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Michael Grabell is a senior editor with ProPublica. Grabell has previously written about economic issues, labor, immigration and trade. He has reported on the ground from more than 35 states, as well as some of the remotest villages in Alaska and Guatemala. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New York Times and on Vice and NPR.
Grabell has won two George Polk awards and has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize — in 2021, as part of a team covering COVID-19, and in 2019, with Ginger Thompson and Topher Sanders, for stories that helped expose the impact of family separation at the border and abuse in immigrant children’s shelters. The latter work also won a Peabody award and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
He previously won the Gerald Loeb Award for business journalism for his investigation into the dismantling of workers’ compensation and an ASNE award for reporting on diversity for his series on the growth of temp work in the economy.
How the Stimulus Revived the Electric Car
The Obama administration helped build an American electric car and battery industry. The question is: Will it last? From ProPublica reporter Michael Grabell's new book on the stimulus, Money Well Spent?
Drive-by Scanning: Officials Expand Use and Dose of Radiation for Security Screening
From prisons to borders to the streets of New York, law enforcement officials are using X-ray scanners on people more often and with higher doses of radiation.
Bill Would Require Independent Study of X-Ray Body Scanners
Sen. Susan Collins is planning to introduce a bill that would require the TSA to conduct a new, independent health study of the X-ray body scanners used to screen airline passengers for explosives at airports.
Invasion of the Body Scanners: They're Spreading, But Are They Safe and Effective?
One type of scanner uses X-rays, and ProPublica and PBS NewsHour revealed questions about whether it might increase cancer cases. But a safer type of scanner has its own problems. ProPublica investigated the biggest change to airport security since the metal detector.
Just How Good Are the TSA's Body Scanners?
While the Transportation Security Administration says that airport body scanners are highly effective at detecting explosives hidden underneath clothing, some studies and a congressman briefed on classified research suggest the machines could miss carefully concealed plastic explosives.
Sweating Bullets: Body Scanners Can See Perspiration as a Potential Weapon
One type of airport body scanner deployed by the Transportation Security Administration has raised health concerns, but a safer type has registered such high false-alarm rates that Germany and France have nixed it.
Coffee, Tea or Cancer? Almost Half of Americans Oppose X-ray Body Scanners
A new Harris poll conducted for ProPublica shows that even if X-ray body scanners would prevent terrorists from smuggling explosives onto planes, 46 percent of Americans still oppose using them because they could cause a few people to eventually develop cancer.
Senator Seeks Answers on X-Ray Body Scanners
In letters to the Transportation Security Administration, Senator Susan Collins asked why the agency backed off its promise to conduct a new safety study of the X-ray machines, and recommended larger signs to advise pregnant women they can request a pat-down instead.