Skip to content
ProPublica Donate
ProPublica Donate
Photo of Tim Golden

Tim Golden

Tim Golden is a reporter at ProPublica, concentrating on national security, foreign policy and criminal justice.

Need to Get in Touch?

Tim Golden is a reporter at ProPublica, concentrating on national security, foreign policy and criminal justice. He was previously the founding managing editor for news and investigations at The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization focused on the U.S. criminal justice system. He was also a senior writer at The New York Times, where he spent two decades as an investigative reporter, foreign correspondent and national correspondent.

Golden began his journalism career at United Press International, covering foreign affairs in the Washington bureau. In 1985, he went to El Salvador as the Central America bureau chief for the Miami Herald, covering war and political upheaval across the region. He was later based in Brazil as the paper’s South America correspondent and spent four years in Mexico as bureau chief for the Times.

As a filmmaker, Golden wrote and co-directed the feature documentary film “Elián,” which had its premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival and was broadcast around the world by CNN and the BBC. He has been a story consultant on feature films including Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning “Traffic” and “Ché.” He also worked on Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side,” which won the Academy Award for feature documentary and was based on Golden’s reporting about U.S. military abuses in Afghanistan.

Golden’s many journalism honors include two shared Pulitzer Prizes: the 1998 international reporting award for coverage of drug corruption in Mexico and the 1987 national reporting prize for stories on the Iran-Contra scandal. He has been a fellow of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the New America Foundation.

DEA Uncovered Alleged Corruption by Mexico’s Former Security Minister Years Before Indictment

In what may prove to be one of the more remarkable intelligence failures of the drug war, the U.S. missed warnings that Genaro García Luna, the chief architect of Mexico’s fight against organized crime, could be in league with the criminals.

El abandono del caso Cienfuegos fue decisión de Barr

Cómo se desmoronó la más importante acusación de EE. UU. contra un funcionario mexicano.

El caso Cienfuegos: el conflicto que hundió la lucha contra las drogas de México y Estados Unidos

Hace 2 años, DEA detuvo a un general mexicano con la esperanza de confrontar la corrupción de alto nivel en el centro del crimen organizado. Pero el caso se vino abajo, y con él la cooperación entre EEUU y México en cuanto al combate al narcotráfico.

Inside the Case that Upended America’s Drug War

Two years ago, the DEA arrested a Mexican general, hoping to lay bare the high-level corruption at the heart of organized crime. Then the case fell apart — and took down U.S.-Mexican cooperation on drug policy with it.

Dropping the Charges Against General Cienfuegos Was William Barr’s Call

How the most significant corruption case against a Mexican official fell apart.

Long-Secret FBI Report Reveals New Connections Between 9/11 Hijackers and Saudi Religious Officials in U.S.

“This validates what we have been saying,” says an attorney for families of 9/11 victims who are suing the Saudi government over alleged support of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Declassifying the 9/11 Investigation

President Biden says he will open up the government’s secret files about the plot, but will they answer the questions that remain?

¿Los cubanoamericanos le darán el triunfo a Trump en Florida?

Sesenta y dos años después de la Revolución cubana, las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y la isla cobran gran importancia.

Could Trump’s Success With Cuban American Voters Help Tip Florida His Way?

Many Cuban Americans oppose steps the White House has taken against Cuba, but they are still backing his hard-line approach.

Coronavirus

Inside the U.S.’s Largest Maximum-Security Prison, COVID-19 Raged. Outside, Officials Called Their Fight a Success.

Inmates at Angola prison in Louisiana told ProPublica of widespread illness, dysfunctional care and deadly neglect as the coronavirus outbreak hit.