Editorial Staff
Bret Sigler
Bret Sigler is a contributing producer and video editor at Retro Report. He is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker who has directed, edited and shot documentaries for PBS, Netflix, ABC, Amazon, MSNBC, VICE, NatGeo, Bravo, TIME, and The New York Times. In addition to the Emmys, his work has been recognized by the CINE Masters’ Series, the Chris Awards, the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Webby Awards, FOCAL International, and the American Society of Magazine Editors. His work has screened at MOMA, HotDocs, Tribeca, and at numerous other film festivals around the world.

Enemies of the People: Trump and the Political Press (Media Mistakes Excerpt)
In this Emmy Award-nominated film, top national political reporters admit mistakes in their reporting on the 2016 election campaign.

Enemies of the People: Trump and the Political Press (CNN's Missteps Excerpt)
In this Emmy Award-nominated film, CEO Jeff Zucker acknowledges missteps in CNN’s 2016 campaign coverage, when many media outlets covered Donald Trump’s campaign as a spectacle.

Enemies of the People: Trump and the Political Press (False Equivalency Excerpt)
This Emmy Award-nominated film looks at how the journalistic instinct for “balanced” reporting on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016 played out.

Enemies of the People: Trump and the Political Press (Historical Excerpt)
This Emmy Award-nominated film explores tensions between the press and presidents, charges of liberal media bias and the decline in public trust in journalism. Watch the documentary.

Enemies of the People: Trump and the Political Press
In this hour-long film, nominated for two 2021 Emmy Awards, journalists who covered Donald Trump during the 2016 race for the White House critique their role in the former president’s rise to power.

Enemies of the People: Trump and the Political Press (Trailer)
In this Emmy Award-nominated film, journalists who covered the 2016 presidential campaign now offer a candid analysis of their role in President Trump’s rise to power.

Lessons From the Challenger Tragedy
Normalization of deviance, the process of becoming inured to risky actions, is a useful concept that was developed to explain how the Challenger disaster happened.

Lingering Peril From Lead Paint
About half a million children have dangerously high lead levels in their blood, mostly from exposure to peeling paint and contaminated dust. The fight over who should clean it up has lasted for decades.

DNA Clues Solve Crimes . . . With a Privacy Cost
DNA information that is available on genealogy websites is doing more than satisfying curiosity – it’s solving crimes.

From Y2K to 2038, Lessons Learned from First Computer Crisis
The Y2K bug threatened to wipe out computers and disrupt modern society at the end of the 20th century. We all remember the doomsday hype, but what really happened?

From Crack Babies to Oxytots: Lessons Not Learned
In the 1980s, many government officials, scientists, and journalists warned that the country would be plagued by a generation of “crack babies.” They were wrong. More than 25 years later, the media is sounding a similar alarm.

Why Waco is Still a Battleground in the 2nd Amendment Debate
In 1993, federal agents raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and generated a legacy that continues to shape antigovernment groups today.

Is Multiple Personality Disorder Real? One Woman's Story
In the 1970s, the TV movie “Sybil” introduced much of the nation to multiple personality disorder and launched a controversy that continues to resonate.

Freeing Willy
In the wake of the 1993 hit movie Free Willy, activists and fans campaigned to release the movie’s star – a captive killer whale named Keiko – and launched a story Hollywood couldn’t invent.

The Crack Baby Scare: From Faulty Science to Media Panic
In the 1980s, images of tiny, jittery “crack babies” caused social outcry – crack-addicted pregnant mothers were prosecuted and the media warned that a generation of “crack babies” would plague our country. Turns out… they were wrong.