A Special Summer Presentation - Episode One

On The Brink of an Election Season Ted Bridis spent 30 years in journalism working for The Associated Press and Wall Street Journal, including 11 years running AP's Pulitzer-winning investigative team in Washington. He now teaches political and public policy journalism full time at the University of Florida as the Michael and Linda Connelly senior lecturer in investigative reporting. At AP, Bridis was the reporter who first discovered Hillary Clinton's email server in her basement, and his investigative team first exposed illegal foreign lobbying by Donald Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who subsequently was indicted by the Justice Department, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison until Trump pardoned him.  Bridis was also among six AP journalists whose phone records the FBI seized under the Obama administration in a leaks investigation. In Florida, Bridis founded the Fresh Take Florida news service, which distributes original reporting produced by his students on Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature to more than 100 news organizations across the state. Casey Seiler is the editor of the Albany NY Times Union. He previously served as managing editor, Capitol Bureau chief and entertainment editor of that newspaper. He is a longtime contributor to WMHT's weekly political roundup "New York Now." Before arriving in Albany in 2000, Seiler worked at the Burlington Free Press in Vermont and the Jackson Hole Guide in Wyoming. A graduate of Northwestern University, Seiler is a Buffalo native who grew up in Louisville, Ky