Joshua Kors


Joshua Kors is an attorney and an investigative reporter. He covers military and veterans' issues.

Life

Kors is from Walnut Creek, California, where he attended Las Lomas High School. He has a master's degree from the Columbia School of Journalism in New York and graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College. In May 2016, Kors earned a law degree from Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville, Tennessee.

Career

Before moving to New York, Kors worked as a reporter for The Spectrum, a Gannett newspaper in southern Utah. His reports included an examination of the Utah National Guard and an interview with Senator Orrin Hatch on stem-cell research.
From 2004 to 2005 Kors worked at KCBS in San Francisco, while reporting on politics and education for the Contra Costa Times.
Kors earned national attention in 2007 for his work uncovering the veterans' benefits scandal. His three-part series showed how military doctors are purposely misdiagnosing soldiers wounded in Iraq, labeling them mentally ill in order to deny them medical care and disability pay.
He continued his reporting with ABC News, collaborating with Bob Woodruff on "World News Tonight" and "Nightline" pieces covering the scandal. The "Nightline" report was part of a series on the struggles of wounded soldiers, which won the Peabody Award.
In July 2007 Kors testified before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, which convened to investigate his reporting. His testimony led to the creation of several bills in Congress, including a new law governing military discharges signed by President Bush in January 2008.
His work is featured in the American Society of Magazine Editors' anthology "The Best American Magazine Writing 2008."
Kors' reporting has been featured on CNN, PBS, BBC, KGO Radio, Washington Post Radio and in print in the Huffington Post, Village Voice and Nieman Reports, Harvard's journalism quarterly.
In November 2015, Kors was a featured speaker at a TEDx conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where he explored his military reporting.

Awards

He is the winner of the National Magazine Award, George Polk Award, IRE Award, National Headliner Award, Casey Medal, Deadline Club Award, Mental Health Media Award, the National Press Club's Hume Award and the Military Reporters and Editors Award. He was also a finalist for the Michael Kelly Award, Livingston Award, Tom Renner Award, John Bartlow Martin Award, Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism, Molly Ivins Prize, Harvard University's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award.