Local television news may have a soft reputation when it comes to hard-hitting investigative journalism. However, some television newsrooms are chasing leads and cultivating inside sources as they undertake investigations that often have national importance. On Exposé’s “Security Theater” the investigative teams at KNXV in Phoenix, KUSA in Denver, and KHOU in Houston go undercover, go on stakeouts, and go the extra mile to unearth government documents and plumb knowledgeable sources revealing shocking lapses in the nation’s airport security.

>> Watch “Security Theater” online now.

>>Watch some of the original television reports that “Security Theater” is based on:

  • “Serious security questions at Sky Harbor Airport“
    Lisa Fletcher reports on lax overnight security at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, where TSA agents turn off the metal detectors and X-ray machines and close the checkpoints between midnight and 4:30 AM. 
  • “Is Houston a sitting duck for terrorism?“
    Jeremy Rogalski finds that some smaller general aviation airports in Houston, TX have no government security requirements, only suggestions. Private and corporate jets and planes are readily accessible and available to anyone who makes it past the lax security. 
  • ”Undercover agents slip bombs past DIA screeners”
    Deborah Sherman learns from inside sources that screeners at Denver International Airport have failed to detect explosives in TSA tests. 

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Carrie Ching is an award-winning, independent multimedia journalist and producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. For six years, she led digital storytelling projects at the Center for Investigative Reporting as senior multimedia producer. Her multimedia reports have been featured by NPR.org, The Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, Grist, Time.com, Fast Company, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, KQED, PBS NewsHour, Salon.com, Mother Jones, Public Radio International, Poynter, Columbia Journalism Review and many other publications. Her specialty is crafting digital narratives and exploring ways to use video, audio, photography, animation and interactive graphics to push the boundaries of storytelling on the Web, tablets and mobile. Her work has been honored with awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Best of the West, the Online News Association, Scripps Howard, The Gracies, and was part of the entry in a Pulitzer-finalist project. Prior to her time at CIR she was a magazine and book editor, video journalist, newspaper reporter and TV comedy scriptwriter. She was on the 2010 Eddie Adams Workshop faculty as a multimedia producer working with MediaStorm to teach digital storytelling techniques to photojournalists. She completed a master’s degree in journalism at UC Berkeley in 2005.