Bill Lichtenstein

On June 19, 2017, Bill was honored along with Congressman Joe Kennedy III with a Special Recognition Award from the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health for Bill's "work to educate the nation and inform public policy, combatting stigma and discrimination . . . [and for his] courage and generosity in sharing [his own] family's experience to light the path to reform and recovery for others. . . "

The article was honored by the 2013 Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism and by the National Alliance on Mental Illness with its 2016 Gloria Huntley Award

The September 9, 2012 Sunday New York Times published an op-ed by Bill Lichtenstein entitled "A Terrifying Way to Discipline Children". that exposed the use of physical restraints and seclusion rooms in schools nationwide, including in 2006 with Lichtenstein's own then 5-year-old daughter. Other families came forward with reports of their children also being restrained and placed in isolation rooms in Lexington, Massachusetts and across the US.

On September 16, 2012, the New York Times published an "editor's note" written by' Sewell Chan containing Lexington Public School's rebuttal to the article. Lichtenstein subsequently refuted Lexington's challenges to the story. In January 2013 the Times reported an editor and fact checker had re-reported the issues that had been raised about the article and nothing in the article was corrected or changed.

Lichtenstein created and was senior executive producer of the national, one-hour weekly series, The Infinite Mind, which for a decade starting in 1998 was public radio's most honored and listened to health and science program. The Infinite Mind examined all aspects of neuroscience, mental health, and the mind, including "how the brain works, and why it sometimes does not from a scientific, cultural and policy perspectives,". The Infinite Mind was hosted by Dr. Fred Goodwin, the former head of the National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Peter Kramer, author of "Listening to Prozac, and John Hockenberry, and broke ground and news on such topics as: addiction; Asperger syndrome; Alzheimer's disease; bullying; chronic fatigue syndrome; depression; mental health and immigrants; posttraumatic stress disorder; postpartum depression; and teen suicide. The national broadcast was widely hailed for its coverage of the mental health impact of the 9/11 attacks, and for providing needed resources to public radio listeners.

Lichtenstein founded the Peabody Award-winning Lichtenstein Creative Media, Inc., in 1990. The company produced the "Voices of an Illness" documentary series, which featured people who were living with, and recovered from, serious mental illness.

In 1986, Lichtenstein was one of the two show producers of the ABC late-night program Jimmy Breslin's People, featuring the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist.

Lichtenstein worked in 1986 for The Investigative Group, at the law firm of Rogovin, Huge and Lenzner, then out of house council for the CIA. Headed by former Watergate counsel Terry Lenzner, Lichtenstein worked with IGI on several investigations including tracking missing royalties for the Beatles' Apple Records.

A 1985 Mother Jones magazine cover story, "How ABC Spikes the News: Three Reagan Administration Scandals that Never Appeared on World News Tonight," revealed that three stories produced by Bill Lichtenstein, including investigations into Reagan administration figures Sen. Paul Laxalt, Sec. of Labor Ray Donovan and USIA director Charles Wick were killed following pressure from the Reagan White House at the same time that ABC was seeking Reagan administration support to increase the maximum number of local TV stations that any one entity could own.

The events surrounding the three reports were detailed in Mark Hertsgaard's "On Bended Knee," and "Project Censored" cited the reports as "Three Stories that Might Have Changed the Course of the 1984 Election" in their annual top ten censored stories list in 1984.

In 1983, he was nominated for three national news Emmy Awards, for Throwaway Kids, a nine-month investigation into abused and children in Oklahoma state juvenile institutions, The Danger Within, a report on the dangers of Urea-Formaldehyde home insulation Nuclear Preparation: Can We Survive? an investigation into President Ronald Reagan's secret plans for the U.S. to prepare to survive all-out nuclear war.

He writes for such publications as The New York Times, The Nation, Village Voice, New York Daily News, Boston Globe and Huffington Post. From 1980 to 2006, Lichtenstein taught investigative reporting for TV and documentary film production at The New School in New York City.

Lichtenstein began his work in television as a writer for ABC and CBS Sports, including as Chief Writer for CBS's coverage of the 1979 Pan American Games.

From 1979 through 1986, Lichtenstein reported and produced investigative reports for ABC News 20/20, Nightline, and World News Tonight. He was part of the Emmy-winning team with Sylvia Chase and Jeff Diamond that uncovered a fatal flaw in the VW Beetle, and along with Stanhope Gould, Bob Sirkin, and Steve Tello, broke the story of the Atlanta Child Murders in 1979. He collaborated with producers Lowell Bergman and Andrew Cockburn on COINTELPRO: The Secret War, the first network news report on the FBI's covert program of dirty tricks used to disrupt and neutralize political activists, including actress Jean Seberg, and Black Panther Geronimo Pratt. He worked on American Held Hostage: The Secret Negotiations, a three-hour prime time ABC News special hosted by Pierre Salinger, that chronicled the previously unreported, extensive efforts by President Jimmy Carter to gain the release of the American hostages in Iran.

He graduated from Brown University in 1978 with a degree in Political Science and English. While at Brown, Lichtenstein worked at WBRU, the 20,000-watt commercial radio station operated by Brown students, and he served as the station's program director in 1975. Lichtenstein received a M.S. degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979.

Lichtenstein began working in 1970 at age 14 as a volunteer and later as a part-time announcer and newscaster at WBCN-FM in Boston, Massachusetts. He later produced investigative reports for ABC News and public radio and television programs and documentary films on social justice issues as well as educational outreach campaigns. Lichtenstein and his company also made early use of emerging new media, including the 3-D virtual reality community Second Life.

Bill Lichtenstein (born October 3, 1956) is an American print and broadcast journalist and documentary producer, president of the media production company, Lichtenstein Creative Media, Incorporated.

Bill Lichtenstein produced and was director of photography of the award-winning documentary film, West 47th Street, which aired on PBS' P.O.V., and was called "must see" by Newsweek. The film won the Atlanta and DC Independent Film Festivals., and an Honorable Mention at the Woodstock Film Festival.