Three women came to the U.S. looking for a better life, but what they found wasn’t the American dream. See what they say they had to endure to provide for their own families.
Ariane Wu
Series Producer, Multimedia
Ariane Wu is Series Producer, Multimedia for The Center for Investigative Reporting. She is passionate about discovering new ways of telling stories visually and through sound. She was previously a Fulbright scholar based in Beijing, as well as a new media fellow at the Asia Society. Ariane holds bachelor’s degrees in film studies and political science from UC Berkeley.
Posted inUncategorized
The highs and lows of investigative reporting
Imagine you’re a pot reporter. Pot as in weed, marijuana, bud. What could possibly go wrong when you cover a drug that is legally contentious but widely tolerated? CIR reporter Michael Montgomery finds out the hard way.
Posted inEnvironment
Who Owns the Fish?
Any commercial fisherman used to be able to fish in U.S. seas. Not anymore. Today, the right to fish belongs to a number of private individuals who have traded, bought and sold these rights in unregulated markets. This system, called “catch shares,” favors large fishing fleets and has cut out thousands of smaller-scale fishermen. How […]
Posted inAccountability
Prisoners of Tradition
With news of the assassination of the second female minister in Afghanistan this week, CIR looks at the oppression and intimidation of Afghan women and the implications for their security as the U.S. withdraws its troops. The story takes viewers inside women’s prisons in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif to provide a rare glimpse of a shocking […]
Posted inUncategorized
Video: The man who armed the Panthers
The man who helped arm the Black Panthers in the 1960s turns out to have been an FBI informant, according to FBI files uncovered by journalist Seth Rosenfeld. A mysterious character who sported sunglasses even at night, Richard Aoki was a militant leader of the Third World strike and an activist with the Asian American […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Survivor recounts life of rape, abuse by Your Black Muslim Bakery leader
Video: Ariane Wu Read full transcript In 2002, five years before journalist Chauncey Bailey was murdered by members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a woman identified only as Jane Doe 1 stepped forward to report decades of sexual abuse, welfare fraud and violence by the bakery’s leader, Yusuf Bey Sr. She was prepared to hand […]
Posted inAccountability
Behind the Story: Price of Sex
Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova tells CIR about her experience filming undercover for “The Price of Sex,” a documentary about young Eastern European women who have been drawn into a netherworld of sex trafficking and abuse. Gaining extraordinary access to young women who were supposed to be silenced by shame, fear and violence, Chakarova illuminates how even though some […]
Posted inAccountability
Behind the Story: ‘Incident in New Baghdad’
Oscar nominee James Spione discusses his documentary about U.S. Army veteran Ethan McCord’s life-changing experiences at the scene of one of the most notorious events of the Iraq war: an American helicopter attack that killed two Reuters journalists, along with a group of mostly unarmed civilians, on the streets of Baghdad in 2007. TRANSCRIPT Filmmaker […]
Posted inEnvironment
Behind the Story: ‘If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front’
Oscar nominee Marshall Curry discusses making this part coming-of-age, part cops-and-robbers thriller that asks hard questions about environmentalism, activism and terrorism. Camera and editing: Ariane Wu Interview: David Ritsher Official Site: If a Tree Falls Transcript Director Marshall Curry: I didn’t know a lot about the ELF (Earth Liberation Front) in the beginning. So, really […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Behind the Story: ‘Saving Face’
More than 100 people, mostly women, are attacked with acid every year in Pakistan. Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy speaks about her investigation into this wave of violence and her award-winning film, which looks at what is being done to help women recover. “Saving Face” won the 2012 Academy Award for best documentary short. The HBO […]