TODD BENSMAN, a two-time National Press Club award winner, has worked domestically and abroad as a newspaper, television and magazine journalist for more than 20 years.

Bensman has specialized in overlooked issues of border security, illegal immigration, Mexico’s ongoing civil drug war and Islamic terrorism.

In October 2009, Bensman joined the Texas Department of Public Safety as a senior intelligence analyst in the agency’s newly minted Intelligence & Counterterrorism Division. In his new role for the state of Texas, he leads a team of analysts and coordinates with multiple law enforcement agencies to identify and neutralize domestic and foreign threats.

His journalism will remain available at this site.

Bensman is the recipient of regional, national and international awards for a wide spectrum of local and foreign journalism.  His reporting has led to several federal indictments and convictions. Bensman has reported from more than 20 countries.

He holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism - Columbia, and a bachelors degree in mass communications from Northern Arizona University - Flagstaff.

From April 2006 through September 2009, Bensman served as an investigative projects reporter for Hearst Corporation’s The San Antonio Express-News. He also has contributed to GlobalPost.com, Pajamasmedia.com, D Magazine, Dan Rather Reports and other media organizations. He has appeared to discuss his work on The O’Reilly Factor, The McLeher News Hour, National Public Radio, and numerous national radio talk shows.

From 2003 to 2006 he served as a staff investigative producer for the CBS-owned Dallas, Texas station, KTVT-11. His work there directly led to a federal corruption conviction against Texas State Representative Terri Hodge and a pending mortgage fraud indictment against former Dallas Cowboys player Eugene Lockhart, along with seven co-defendants.

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 enforcement programs after 9-11. Often dispatched to breaking national stories, he also covered the Columbine school shootings, the Jonesboro school massacre and the Space Shuttle Colombia crash.

Foreign reporting has been a stock in trade. Awarded one of the first International Reporting Project fellowships, he reported for The Dallas Morning News from Angola, Namibia and South Africa.

During the early 1990s, Bensman worked abroad as a freelance correspondent in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe. For nearly a year, in 1992 and 1993, Bensman covered combat in Croatia and Bosnia with an emphasis on the siege of Sarajevo from inside the embattled city. He contributed war coverage to 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, and on the peaceful breakup of Czechoslovakia, Hungarian nationalism and economic transition in Ukraine.

In 1991, he covered the Gulf War, starting in Israel, where he reported on scud missile attacks in Tel Aviv for United Press International. He also covered violent anti-U.S. demonstrations in Jordan and refugee flows in Egypt.

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 can be reached at 210-859-0202 or todd.bensman@gmail.com

          Todd Bensman accepting 2009 National Press Club award in August