TODD BENSMAN has worked as a newspaper, television and magazine journalist for more than 20 years, domestically and abroad. He currently serves as an investigative projects reporter for Hearst Corporation’s The San Antonio Express-News. He is the recipient of regional, national and international awards for a spectrum of work that has produced government corruption indictments and convictions, and explored unexamined angles of national security, illegal immigration, border violence and Mexico’s drug war.

He invites story ideas, credible tips and feedback on behalf of the Express-News. You can contact him confidentially at 210-250-3221 or here: todd.bensman@gmail.com, or tbensman@express-news.net

Bensman earned his Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and a bachelors degree in mass communications from Northern Arizona University.

From 2003 to 2006 he served as a staff investigative producer for the CBS-owned Dallas, Texas station, KTVT-11.

For ten years, from 1993 to 2003, Bensman worked as a staff reporter for The Dallas Morning News,  covering federal law enforcement agencies with an emphasis on Islamic extremism and counterterrorism after 9-11. Often dispatched to breaking national stories, he covered the Columbine school shootings, the Jonesboro massacre and the Space Shuttle Colombia crash. Awarded one of the first International Reporting Project fellowships, he reported from Angola, Namibia and South Africa.

During the early 1990s, Bensman worked abroad as a freelance correspondent, starting in Israel, where he reported on the Gulf War for United Press International. He covered scud missile attacks on Tel Aviv, violent anti-U.S. demonstrations in Jordan and refugees in Egypt. From there, he moved on to Eastern Europe to cover events, including armed conflicts, related to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

For nearly a year, Bensman covered combat in Croatia and Bosnia, with an emphasis on the siege of Sarajevo from inside the embattled city, for USA Today, The Canadian Press, The St. Petersburg Times, The Houston Chronicle and other publications. He also produced rare reportage from the short vicious war in the former Soviet republic of Moldova, the peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia, Hungarian nationalism and economic transition in Ukraine.

In 1989, he worked for The Anchorage Times in Alaska, covering the city government, volcanic eruptions, avalanches and the occasional grizzly bear attack.

He began his journalism career in Arizona in 1987 at The Mesa Tribune.

Bensman lives with his wife and two children in San Antonio, Texas.

TO CONTACT TODD WITH A STORY IDEA FOR THE EXPRESS-NEWS OR AN INVITATION TO DISCUSS HIS WORK, email: todd.bensman@gmail.com, or tbensman@express-news.net