The enormously popular sports utility vehicles proliferating on American roads are safer and cleaner today — thanks in part to Keith Bradsher.
As Detroit bureau chief for the New York Times from 1996 to 2002, Bradsher launched a full-scale investigation of the light truck industry. His work sparked the wrath of powerful auto executives, but also led to a redesign of certain SUVs, making them less deadly to other motorists.
Bradsher’s book, High and Mighty: SUVs — The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way, was published in 2002 and won the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism and The Washington Monthly's 2002 Annual Political Book Award.
Ford engineers nicknamed the steel bars they added below and above their SUVs' bumpers "Bradsher bars." The bars are designed to keep SUVs from overriding cars' bumpers and door sills during collisions, a problem Bradsher particularly highlighted.
Environmental regulators cited Bradsher's work when they tightened SUV pollution standards. And the series of articles earned him a Polk Award and made him one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting.
Journalism has always been a part of Bradsher's life. His father worked as a foreign correspondent. By age 9, Bradsher became a regular Newsweek reader, then switched to The Economist in junior high. At UNC, he opted not to major in journalism but worked energetically at The Daily Tar Heel — UNC’s award-winning campus newspaper. Morehead internships led him to a business magazine in London and freelancing in Mexico and Nicaragua.
Bradsher initially wanted a diplomatic career, but then an internship during graduate school at Princeton landed him at the Los Angeles Times. After the internship was extended three times — with Bradsher logging in more than 140 business stories — he was hooked on journalism.
Since his controversial yet highly successful years in Detroit, Bradsher has been named the New York Times' Hong Kong bureau chief. Major stories have included the SARS epidemic and China's rapid economic growth. Although he's far from Chapel Hill, Bradsher still appreciates the boost the Morehead gave him along the way.
"My experiences as a Morehead gave me a broad base of experience in learning how to get along with lots of different people," he said. "And my Morehead internships were crucial in helping me get started in journalism."
