David Burnham, whose police graft exposés inspired ‘Serpico,’ dies at 91

At the New York Times, Mr. Burnham revealed deep police corruption and whistleblowers such as Frank Serpico fighting the culture of abuses.


David Burnham, left, and Frank Serpico after the New York premiere of the documentary “Frank Serpico” in 2017. (Family photo)

By Brian Murphy
October 5, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. EDT

David Burnham, an investigative journalist whose work at the New York Times exposed deep-rooted corruption in the city’s police department and explored claims of nuclear industry coverups that inspired the films “Serpico” and “Silkwood,” died Oct. 1 at his home in Spruce Head, Maine. He was 91. ... The cause was a heart attack after choking on food, said his wife, Joanne Omang.

During more than five decades as a journalist and author, Mr. Burnham built a reputation as a dogged ally for whistleblowers, producing powerful scoops and books peering into government accountability, including “A Law unto Itself” (1989) on the growing powers of the Internal Revenue Service. ... “[He] took delight in taking a sledgehammer to certainty,” wrote journalist David Shribman in an email recalling his years working alongside Mr. Burnham at the Washington bureau of the New York Times in the 1980s.

Mr. Burnham also was among the first to recognize the powerful shifts underway with the emerging computer age. He helped set the foundations for a new brand of reporting, using online records and databases to probe how taxpayer money was spent and what policies were favored.

Yet he saw the flip side of digital technology, writing presciently about how government agencies and others would have tools for widespread monitoring and surveillance. “Large bureaucracies, with the power that the computer gives them, become more powerful,” Mr. Burnham told C-SPAN after the 1983 publication of his book “The Rise of the Computer State.”

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David Burnham. (Family photo)

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By Brian Murphy
Brian Murphy joined The Washington Post after more than 20 years as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief for the Associated Press in Europe and the Middle East. Murphy has reported from more than 50 countries and has written four books.follow on X @BrianFMurphy