Author: mscaching

When Maui Burned


During the summer of 2023 I moved with my family back to Hawaii, the islands where I was born and raised. We landed in Haiku, Maui. Twelve days later the island was swept by deadly wildfires and the town of Lahaina burned to the ground. I was pulled into reporting on the tragedy for the national media. I wrote about that experience, and my revelations about the deeper story behind the fire, in a personal essay for The Atlantic. This essay is an adaptation from my forthcoming book, a reported memoir about the legacies of colonialism in Hawaii, and the relationship between colonialism and climate change.

The Panama Papers: Victims of Offshore


The Panama Papers is a global investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a wide network of partners into the sprawling, secretive industry of offshore that the world’s rich and powerful use to hide assets and skirt rules by setting up front companies in far-flung jurisdictions.

Based on a trove of more than 11 million leaked files, the investigation exposes a cast of characters who use offshore companies to facilitate bribery, arms deals, tax evasion, financial fraud and drug trafficking.

Behind the email chains, invoices and documents that make up the Panama Papers are often unseen victims of wrongdoing enabled by this shadowy industry. This is their story.

Executive producer: Hamish Boland-Rudder
Producer: Carrie Ching
Animation artist: Arthur Jones
Reporter: Will Fitzgibbon
Narrator: Eleanor Bell Fox

This project was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Learn more on ICIJ.org.

Hawaii on the Rocks


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An animated documentary film that follows the crystal meth epidemic that began sweeping the Hawaiian Islands in the 1980s and continues to this day. It’s the story of the federal drug war gone wrong, a Native Hawaiian community battling addiction, and a brutal murder in the director’s family that shook the entire state.

This feature documentary is currently in development.

Level 14


The calls for help came day and night from the group home for troubled children in Davis, California. Dozens a day – to the police, to state authorities, the unending pleas chronicling sexual assaults and suicide tries, runaways and random violence. A rescue was mounted too late, and the disaster in Davis to this day haunts those it touched. This is the story of Sule Anibaba, who worked as a counselor at the Davis home for five years, emerging both damaged and ashamed.

I directed and produced this illustrated documentary for ProPublica. Reported by Joaquin Sapien and illustrated by Marina Luz.

Uncovering a Mysterious Cholera Outbreak in Haiti


After the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010, reporter Sebastian Walker arrived in Port-au-Prince to cover the aftermath. He ended up staying for more than a year. In the midst of the chaos, a mystery disease began to spread rapidly across the country. In October, 10 months after the devastating quake, the outbreak was diagnosed as cholera. Walker and his team heard rumors that a sewage spill might be the origin of the epidemic and went out to investigate. What they discovered was a global catastrophe.

I directed and produced this illustrated documentary for my VICE News series Correspondent Confidential. Reported by Sebastian Walker, illustrated by Jackie Roche.

Strange Border Kidnappings in Kosovo


In the wake of the war in Kosovo, investigative journalist Michael Montgomery traveled to the Balkans to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Serbs. His scrutiny brought to light evidence that suggested links between a black-market crime syndicate and the upper echelon of the Kosovo Liberation Army — indicating that the end of war doesn’t necessarily mean the end of war crimes.

I directed and produced this story for my illustrated documentary series called Correspondent Confidential on VICE News. Art by Marina Luz.

A Bizarre Night in Thailand


In 2004 I traveled to Thailand to interview expat Vietnam War veterans for a story about the upcoming Bush-Kerry presidential election. The story took me to the country’s raunchiest neighborhood during Thailand’s New Year festival—on what is notoriously one of the country’s rowdiest days of the year. I wound up in the heart of Boyz Town, the gay red-light district famous for illegal prostitution of underage boys. The interviews that day may have been about US politics, but the real story—illegal sex tourism and child prostitution—was happening right before my eyes.

I directed and produced this story for my illustrated documentary series on VICE called Correspondent Confidential. Illustrated and animated by Colleen Cox.

Investigating an Unsolved KKK Murder in the Deep South


Two young black men were found dead in a river in Mississippi. The year was 1964, and many suspected the men died at the hands of the KKK. But this was the South in the 60s—the case was never solved. Decades later, filmmaker David Ridgen returned to Mississippi with the brother of one of the victims. What they discovered there cracked open a 40-year-old cold case and changed the course of history.

I directed and produced this illustrated documentary for my VICE series called Correspondent Confidential. Illustrated by Marina Luz.

I Was Kidnapped by a Colombian Guerrilla Army


Episode two of my new illustrated documentary series for VICE. Art by the talented Arthur Jones. Reporter T. Christian Miller was based in Colombia during the height of the US government’s war on drugs. As the US began to pour money into fighting the cocaine trade in Colombia, it inevitably spilled over into fighting the rebel groups that controlled—and “taxed”—the areas where coca plants were grown. When Miller went into the jungle to report on a government helicopter that was shot down during a mission to spray coca plants, he and his assistant were kidnapped by the FARC, a left-wing guerrilla army.
See more episodes of Correspondent Confidential on VICE.

I Posed as a Prostitute in a Turkish Brothel


In the first episode of my illustrated documentary series for VICE News, photojournalist Mimi Chakarova talks about her journey deep into the underworld of international sex trafficking. For her film, The Price of Sex, Chakarova posed as a prostitute while working undercover in brothels in Turkey and Dubai. Art by the talented Marina Luz.

About CORRESPONDENT CONFIDENTIAL on VICE News:

Journalists go deep. Sometimes they go so deep into a story they lose track of where the story ends and their private life begins. Correspondent Confidential is a series of illustrated documentary shorts narrated by award-winning journalists. Newspaper reporters, documentary filmmakers, radio producers, and journalists tell personal stories about the harrowing—and hilarious—experiences they’ve had on the job while reporting on some of the world’s most high-profile issues and events.

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