FIRE Investigative Editor

In August 2016, Bridis’ Associated Press team revealed Paul Manafort's secret pro-Russian lobbying campaign, leading President Trump to ask for Manafort's resignation as campaign chairman and leading to Manafort's subsequent federal indictment. Bridis led AP's efforts that won the $10,000 Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award in 2014 and 2011, and he won the 2014 Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics and the 2014 Society of Professional Journalism Ethics in Journalism Award. His team won the Pulitzer and Goldsmith prizes for investigative reporting on NYPD intelligence programs in 2012, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2019 for reporting on child immigration. 

Bridis is one of six AP journalists whose phone records the Justice Department seized in 2013 in a leaks investigation, which led to stronger press protections under new federal regulations. Bridis was a national staff writer and investigative reporter for AP in Washington from 2001 until 2007, winning AP's $10,000 Oliver S. Gramling award in 2004 for blending source reporting, technology, and strategic thinking. He was AP's leading newsroom expert on source protection and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and related laws. 

Before the AP, Bridis was a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal in Washington from 2000 to 2001, covering technology policy, computer and national security, online privacy, and legal affairs. 

At the Wall Street Journal, he witnessed Flight 77 crash into the Pentagon and was the first to notify editors at the Journal, which won the Pulitzer Prize that day for breaking news reporting. Bridis was raised in Miami and graduated from the University of Missouri. He has been married 29 years and has two grown children.