Award-winning investigative journalist and interviewer Trish Wood has been blowing up conventional wisdom for decades. A television and radio trailblazer, she’s renowned for chasing organized crime bosses through Tokyo, exposing crooked religious cranks, dodging drunken teens with guns at checkpoints in war-torn Burundi, and setting free innocent men. Trish’s intrepid reporting landed exclusive guests and won her fans, accolades, and occasionally, critics.
Now, she is bringing her electric interviewing style, hard-won wisdom, and wicked humour, crushing agenda-driven overload with critical thinking to her podcast Trish Wood Is Critical. Trish’s deep empathy for the downtrodden but fearless questioning of the powerful creates profound moments. Neither left nor right of center — she is a Libertarian in her head but a champion of the working class in her heart — she can’t be pigeonholed and refuses to see the world through the lens of manufactured talking points and toxic dogma.
Her latest project, a critically acclaimed, five-part documentary series for Amazon Studios deep-dives into a female take on the Ted Bundy murders. It’s a game-changer in true-crime storytelling. Bundy’s long-time girlfriend stepped out of the shadows, as did Bundy’s brother, Richard, and many others who’d never told their stories.
For nearly 10 years she was one of the hosts for the Emmy Award-winning investigative current affairs series, The Fifth Estate, spending years on the road, outworking, outthinking, and during long nights away, outdrinking the men in her world. It was a formula for success — until it wasn’t. Drinking exploded her life, so she committed to recovery, focussed on parenting her two boys as a single mother, and came back stronger than ever.
In 2006 she published What Was Asked of Us (Little, Brown) —heartbreaking testimonies from Iraq War soldiers. It was praised by critics including from TheNew York Times and People Magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle called it “the only book about the war that matters” and the soldier’s stories changed the conversation about the conflict. It’s available on Amazon.
She went on to create I Didn’t Do It, believed to be the first-ever wrongful conviction series. It investigated the cases of men like Dewey Bozella and Alton Logan who were imprisoned for murders they didn’t commit. Trish was a pioneer during the recent renaissance of true-crime storytelling, developing and producing a number of successful titles.
Now she’s embracing the rowdy, free-for-all world of podcasting and the chance to tell the world what she really thinks. Oh, and basketball.
