Mike Riggs is the Founder of ONE Way Byte - Performance Coaching for Life, Business and Sport. Our mission is to change the world – one person at a time – by helping you realize your unlimited human potential. We serve as objective guides who empower you to become your own catalyst for change. We bring you practical techniques to create positive, purposeful development, guiding you to achieve unprecedented success and satisfaction in the performance theaters you choose.

KARIE PRESCOTT

MARINA MANUKIAN

She has been featured as a soloist with numerous orchestras, chamber music concerts and recitals. Her passionate artistry has been heard and embraced worldwide, including throughout Europe, former U.S.S.R. and the United States.
She is the winner of numerous music awards and prizes including the 1st prize for National Young Artist Competition, in former U.S.S.R., Aspen International Music Festival and Herb Alpert Music Award from A & M Records.

The Los Angeles Times identifies Marina Manukian as “a violinist extraordinaire…whose virtuosity is exceeded only by her calmness and confidence, working through the intricacies with masterful grace and strength”.

Since 2006 Marina has been the Artistic Director and Concertmaster of The Enlightenment Chamber Music Series which presents concerts performed by the selection of expert chamber musicians, soloists and recording artists from around the world. In addition to her solo and chamber music performances Marina has recorded for over 700 television and motion picture scores.

JOHN WALZ

In 1979, Mr. Walz, along with pianist Edith Orloff, founded the Pacific Trio. Now performing with violinist Roger Wilkie, this renowned ensemble has played more than 900 concerts throughout North America and Europe. In addition to his solo and chamber music duties, he is currently the principal cellist with the Los Angeles Opera, a position he previously held for 20 years with the Long Beach Symphony.

His ever expanding discography includes recordings of the concertos by Dvorak, Haydn, Shostakovich, Bloch, Martinu, Vivaldi, and trios by Brahms, Dvorak, Smetana, and the newly released Pacific Trio CD featuring Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Archduke Trio.
He is on the faculty of the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program and Academy.

PEGGY O’NEILL

Jerry Ensminger was a devoted Marine for nearly twenty-five years.  As a drill instructor he lived and breathed the "Corps" and was responsible for indoctrinating thousands of new recruits with its motto Semper Fidelis or "Always Faithful."  When Jerry's nine-year-old daughter Janey died of a rare type of leukemia, his world collapsed.  As a grief-stricken father, he struggled for years to make sense of what happened.  His search for answers led to the shocking discovery of a Marine Corps cover-up of one of the largest water contamination incidents in U.S. history.  Jerry's mission was then to expose the Marine Corps and force them to live up to their motto to the thousands of Marines and their families exposed to toxic chemicals.  His fight reveals a grave injustice at Camp Lejeune and a looming environmental crisis at military sites across the country.  He is a co-founder of the activist group, "The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten." See http://tftptf.com.

My name is Russ Baker. For more than two decades I have been an investigative journalist, doing what I believed journalists were supposed to do — seek the truth and publish nothing less. Over the years, however, I have learned how the media gatekeepers, both “mainstream” and “alternative,” will not allow the biggest, most disturbing revelations to see the light of day.

I started WhoWhatWhy because I was tired of the cynicism, self-interest, and cowardice that I witnessed in the news media. I started WhoWhatWhy to show how good — and how consequential — journalism can be when the only mandate is to dig relentlessly, and reveal, without exception, what we uncover.

What we do

WhoWhatWhy embodies a form of investigative reporting that is rigorous, relentless and scientific — we call it forensic journalism.

Forensic journalism requires skepticism towards power and credentialed expertise; a determination to unearth the facts interested parties want to keep hidden; and an unflinching commitment to follow the trail wherever it leads. We are truth seeking-not quote seeking.

We take on controversial topics others will not touch and dig deep to uncover and name the institutions and persons shaping our world. Our organization is neither partisan nor ideological and only provides accounts based on extensive research and thorough sourcing.

In addition to producing rigorous investigative reporting, we seek to further the long-term survival and betterment of the news industry as a whole.

We pair senior reporters who have decades of experience with dedicated young journalists new to the field. We facilitate the transfer of values, methods and culture as our talented and varied investigators shape an improved and adaptive form of journalism to fit our times.

Provide us your ideas

We strongly encourage our readers to join us in our mission. If you know of a news, academic or literary source that relates to one of our stories, tell us about it. If there is a story of interest that hasn’t received coverage or documented facts we are missing, let us know! Consider yourself the media watchdog for the media watchdog.

Donate to Us

We are a non-profit organization. We need readers, supporters and citizens passionate about and committed to strong investigative journalism. Please consider a donation to help us produce the next story.

The People

THE BOARD AND STAFF

WhoWhatWhy is made up of a combination of full-time journalists, expert advisors and other specialists.

Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief Russ Baker

Russ Baker is an award-winning investigative reporter with a track record for making sense of complex and little understood matters — and explaining it to elites and ordinary people alike, using entertaining, accessible writing to inform and involve.

Over the course of more than two decades in journalism, Baker has broken scores of major stories. Topics included: early reporting on inaccuracies in the articles of The New York Times’s Judith Miller that built support for the invasion of Iraq; the media campaign to destroy UN chief Kofi Annan and undermine confidence in multilateral solutions; revelations by George Bush’s biographer that as far back as 1999 then-presidential candidate Bush already spoke of wanting to invade Iraq; the real reason Bush was grounded during his National Guard days — as recounted by the widow of the pilot who replaced him; an article published throughout the world that highlighted the West’s lack of resolve to seriously pursue the genocidal fugitive Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, responsible for the largest number of European civilian deaths since World War II; several investigations of allegations by former members concerning the practices of Scientology; corruption in the leadership of the nation’s largest police union; a well-connected humanitarian relief organization operating as a cover for unauthorized US covert intervention abroad; detailed evidence that a powerful congressional critic of Bill Clinton and Al Gore for financial irregularities and personal improprieties had his own track record of far more serious transgressions; a look at the practices and values of top Democratic operative and the clients they represent when out of power in Washington; the murky international interests that fueled both George W. Bush’s and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns; the efficacy of various proposed solutions to the failed war on drugs; the poor-quality televised news program for teens (with lots of advertising) that has quietly seeped into many of America’s public schools; an early exploration of deceptive practices by the credit card industry; a study of ecosystem destruction in Irian Jaya, one of the world’s last substantial rain forests.

Baker has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, Esquire, and dozens of other major domestic and foreign publications. He has also served as a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. Baker received a 2005 Deadline Club award for his exclusive reporting on George W. Bush’s military record. He is the author of Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America (Bloomsbury Press, 2009); it was released in paperback as Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Secret History of the Last Fifty Years. 

Board of Directors and Their Affiliations

Russ Baker

• Award-winning investigative reporter
• Contributor: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, Esquire, and dozens of other major domestic and foreign publications
• Contributing editor: Columbia Journalism Review
• Deadline Club Awardee
• Author: Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America (Bloomsbury Press, 2009); in paperback as Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Secret History of the Last Fifty Years

JP SOTTILE is a freelance journalist, published historian, radio co-host and documentary filmmaker. His credits include a stint on the NewsHour news desk, C-SPAN, and as a newsmagazine producer for ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington. Joseph “JP” Sottile is a two-time Washington Regional Emmy Award Winner. Documentary film credits include: writer, director, producer of The Warning and various production and photography credits on other public interest films. His weekly show, Inside the Headlines w/ The Newsvandal, co-hosted by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa. He is the Newsvandal.