Betty Medsger

Betty Medsger’s journalism career began in 1964 at The Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown, PA and at The Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia. In March 1971, Medsger, then a reporter at The Washington Post, received copies of files that had been stolen from the Media, PA, FBI office the night of March 8, 1971. She wrote the first stories about these files, which revealed that J. Edgar Hoover had, for nearly a half century, distorted the mission of the most powerful law enforcement agency and one of the most venerated institutions in the nation: the FBI. Medsger’s The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI, published this year by Alfred A. Knopf, introduces the Media burglars to the public for the first time.

Medsger has additionally authored Framed: The New Right Attack on Chief Justice Rose Bird and the Courts, an investigation into the attacks on the California Supreme Court in the late 1970s, and Winds of Change: Challenges Confronting J