Event

hosted by: DICK POLMAN

A native of Kent, England, BARBARA LAKER came to the United States with her family when she was 12. In high school, as Watergate broke, Barbara knew she wanted to be a reporter. She graduated from the University of Missouri Journalism School in 1979. A reporter for more than 30 years, Barbara has worked for the Clearwater Sun, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Dallas Times-Herald and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, before joining the Philadelphia Daily News in 1993. She has written about everything from murder and corruption to AIDS and child abuse. At the Daily News, she has been a general assignment reporter, assistant city editor and investigative reporter. With Daily News colleague Wendy Ruderman, she won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for their series, "Tainted Justice," about a rogue narcotics squad in the Philadelphia Police Department.

WENDY RUDERMAN got her start in journalism in 1991 when she became editor of a weekly newspaper in South Jersey. She earned a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1997. Before joining the Philadelphia Daily News in 2007, she worked as a reporter at several media organizations, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Trenton Times, the Associated Press, and the Bergen Record. She covered New Jersey government and politics from 1998 through 2002, reporting on the administrations of former governors Christine T. Whitman and James E. McGreevey. From June 2012—June 2013, she was the New York Times'Police Bureau chief. She returned to the Philadelphia Daily News in August 2013 and is now assigned to the newspaper's City Hall Bureau.