During his 16 years with the Boston Herald and the Detroit News, and as a nationally-syndicated columnist, Warren T. Brookes, in the words of Thomas Bray of the Detroit News, "made a virtual career out of questioning the conventional wisdoms of the so-called experts." He "delighted precisely in the unconventional wisdom, not only about economics but also about a wide range of subjects."
Warren Brookes and CEI had a special relationship, sharing information and trading the woeful tales that inevitably arise from working in Washington. After Brookes' death in 1991, CEI established the Warren T. Brookes Fellowship to keep his legacy alive. Through the program, CEI identifies and trains talented young people and experienced journalists who wish to improve their knowledge of environmental issues and free market economics. In this manner, the program seeks to perpetuate Brookes' tradition of reporting from a sound scientific and economic perspective.
Current Fellow
Silvia Santacruz is the 2008-09 Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Silvia is working on a documentary that will showcase developing countries’ right to be enriched through capital-intensive extractive industries such as energy and mining.
Silvia is the writer-editor at www.ecuadorminingnews.com, a bilingual (English and Spanish) investor relations website for international investors with Ecuador holdings. Previously, she was a business reporter at El Comercio newspaper in Quito, Ecuador, and freelanced for several dailies and magazines both in Ecuador and the United States.
Silvia holds a master’s degree in business journalism from CUNY Baruch College, in New York, and an undergraduate degree in economics from the Polytechnic University in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She resides in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Former Fellows
2007-2008 - Lene Johansen
2006-2007 - Jeremy Lott
Jeremy is a freelance writer, editor, and bon vivant living in the Washington, DC area.
2005-2006 – Timothy Carney
Tim is the senior reporter for the Evans-Novak Political Report, a columnist for the Washington Examiner, a contributing editor at Human Events, and the author of The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money.
2004-2005 - John Berlau
John Berlau is director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at CEI.
2003-2004 - Neil Hrab
Neil is a freelance journalist.
2002-2003 - Hugo Gurdon
Hugo is editor in chief ofThe Hill.
2001-2002 - Eileen Ciesla-Norcross
Eileen is a research
fellow with the Government Accountability Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
2000-2001 - Sean Paige
Sean was the editorial page editor The Gazette of Colorado Springs.
1999 - Brian Doherty
Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine and Reason.com. Doherty is author of the books This is Burning Man and Radicals for Capitalism: A History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement.
1997-1998 - Jesse Walker
Jesse Walker is the managing editor of Reason magazine and Reason.com. He is author of the book Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America.
1996 - James Bovard
James is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy; The Bush Betrayal; Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil; Freedom in Chains : The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen; Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years; as well as several other books.
1995 - Michelle Malkin
Michelle is a syndicated columnist, author, and Fox News Channel contributor.
1994 - Michael Fumento
Michael is an author, journalist, photographer and attorney
specializing in science and health issues. He has been a science columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service,
a legal writer for the Washington Times, editorial writer for the
Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and was the first "National Issues"
reporter for Investor's Business Daily.
In both 2005 and 2006 he was an embedded journalist in Afghanistan and
three times in the volatile western Iraq province of Al Anbar,
including the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. He is the author of Science Under Siege and The Fat of the Land.
1993 - Ronald Bailey
Ron is the science correspondent for Reason magazine and Reason.com and editor
Global Warming
and Other Eco Myths and the author of Liberation Biology: The Scientific And Moral Case For The Biotech Revolution.
Apply for the Fellowship
To apply to become the next Warren T. Brookes fellow, please send cover letter, résumé, and writing samples (such as articles and op-eds) to chall@cei.org.
