As Freedom of Information Day at SIBL—March 16th—approaches, I want to pass along the details of the event and give some background on our presenter, David Barstow of The New York Times. The session is free and open to the public—no reservations are required; we hope you will join us for what promises to be an extremely interesting presentation.

Our event will take place in room 14/15 on the lower level (turn and walk underneath the staircase) here at the Science, Industry and Business Library, 188 Madison Avenue (at 34th Street) in Manhattan (by subway, the No. 6 is the closest, but many lines have 34th Street stops). We plan to begin at 10:30 a.m. with Mr. Barstow's presentation, with time available for a question and answer period at the end.

David BarstowDavid Barstow has been an investigative reporter for The New York Times since 2002. Mr. Barstow joined The Times in 1999, as a reporter for the Metro desk. His most recent article, “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours,” appeared on December 26, 2010.

In 2002 and 2003, Mr. Barstow reported extensively on workplace safety in America, leading a team of journalists that produced two series for The Times and an hour-long documentary for the PBS program "Frontline." The two series, "Dangerous Business" (Three articles: At a Texas foundry, an indifference to life, A Family's Fortune, a Legacy of Blood and Tears and Deaths on the job, slaps on the wrist), and "When Workers Die," (Three Articles: The Plumber's Apprentice, A Culture of Reluctance and The California Way) won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2004. The two series and the documentary were also recognized with the duPont Silver Baton, an award long regarded as the Pulitzer Prize of television reporting.

In 2009, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for "Message Machine," two articles that exposed a covert Pentagon campaign to use retired military officers, working as analysts for television and radio networks, to reiterate administration "talking points" about the war on terror.

Before joining the paper, Mr. Barstow worked for The St. Petersburg Times in Florida beginning in 1990, reporting on a wide range of issues. While there, he was a finalist for three Pulitzer Prizes: in 1997, he was the lead writer for coverage of race riots and was a finalist for spot news reporting; in 1998, he helped lead coverage of financial wrongdoing at the National Baptist Convention and was a finalist for investigative reporting; and, that same year, he wrote a series of stories about tobacco litigation and was a finalist for explanatory journalism. Before joining The St. Petersburg Times, Mr. Barstow was a reporter for The Rochester Times-Union in upstate New York.

The above links to articles are to NYPL's New York Times database, available from home with a library card. The articles are also available from The New York Times website, although access to some or all of them may be restricted to subscribers.