Josh Sanburn is a freelance writer, reporter, and former development producer at Gimlet Media, where he produced special series for The Wall Street Journal’s podcast The Journal, including To the Moon, an ASME-nominated series about the GameStop stock frenzy, and How to Build a Metaverse about the virtual world Second Life, which was nominated for a 2023 Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Award.

Sanburn is also a former TIME Magazine national correspondent, where he wrote TIME's cover stories on the Flint water crisis, which was also nominated for an SPJ Deadline Award, and the construction of One World Trade Center. He also wrote features about the decline of capital punishment, man-made earthquakes in Oklahoma, and the increasing popularity of cremation. One of his stories was turned into a Lifetime movie. (This is not a joke. Just look at the photo.) He's also written for Vanity Fair and New York Magazine, produced documentary series for ABC News and National Geographic, and written and produced audio documentaries for Audible, including Brooklyn North about wrongful convictions in New York City in the 1980s and ’90s, and The Riddle of Emmon Bodfish, about a mysterious 1999 cold case in the Bay Area.

Sanburn is originally from Linton, Indiana, and graduated from Indiana University. He studied philosophy while editing the Indiana Daily Student. He now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with his wife Claire and children Kate and Jack. When he’s not a working as a journalist, he’s either helping raise tiny humans, writing and playing music, or eternally asking why the IU basketball program can’t hire a decent coach.

Email me! jsanburn@gmail.com