Sacha Pfeiffer Correspondent, Investigations
Stories By

Sacha Pfeiffer

Sacha Pfeiffer Lucy Cobos/WBUR hide caption

toggle caption
Lucy Cobos/WBUR

Sacha Pfeiffer

Lucy Cobos/WBUR

Sacha Pfeiffer

Correspondent, Investigations

Sacha Pfeiffer is a correspondent for NPR's Investigations team and an occasional guest host for some of NPR's national shows.

Pfeiffer came to NPR from The Boston Globe's investigative Spotlight team, whose stories on the Catholic Church's cover-up of clergy sex abuse won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, among other honors. That reporting is the subject of the movie Spotlight, which won the 2016 Oscar for Best Picture.

Pfeiffer was also a senior reporter and host of All Things Considered and Radio Boston at WBUR in Boston, where she won a national 2012 Edward R. Murrow Award for broadcast reporting. While at WBUR, she was also a guest host for NPR's nationally syndicated On Point and Here & Now.

At The Boston Globe, where she worked for nearly 18 years, Pfeiffer also covered the court system, legal industry and nonprofit/philanthropic sector; produced investigative series on topics such as financial abuses by private foundations, shoddy home construction and sexual misconduct in the modeling industry; helped create a multi-episode podcast, Gladiator, about the life and death of NFL player Aaron Hernandez; and wrote for the food section, travel pages and Boston Globe Magazine. She shared the George Polk Award for National Reporting, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, among other honors.

At WBUR, where she worked for about seven years, Pfeiffer also anchored election coverage, debates, political panels and other special events. She came to radio as a senior reporter covering health, science, medicine and the environment, and her on-air work received numerous awards from the Radio & Television News Directors Association and the Associated Press.

From 2004-2005, Pfeiffer was a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University, where she studied at Stanford Law School. She is a co-author of the book Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church and has taught journalism at Boston University's College of Communication.

She has a bachelor's degree in English and history, magna cum laude, and a master's degree in education, both from Boston University, as well as an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Cooper Union.

Pfeiffer got her start in journalism as a reporter at The Dedham Times in Massachusetts. She is also a volunteer English language tutor for adult immigrants.

Story Archive

Friday

Settlement talks are faltering in the Sept. 11 terrorism case

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1197167849/1197167850" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Wednesday

Amtrak's California Zephyr passes a plateau during its 2,438-mile trip to Emeryville/San Francisco from Chicago. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

At 84, he has completed his goal of riding all 21,000 miles of the Amtrak network

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1192762939/1192768483" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Friday

Ben Purkert tackles masculinity and ego within the advertising industry in new novel

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1192246145/1192246146" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

What to know about Tanya Chutkan, the judge overseeing Trump's Jan. 6 case

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1192016508/1192037568" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Women's World Cup update: Morocco in, Germany out

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191972828/1191972829" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Ambassador-at-Large John Nkengasong, who will lead the State Department's Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy, speaks to the press about the new agency. He told NPR that the pandemic "taught us three key lessons. We are collectively more connected than we thought. We are more vulnerable than we thought. And we have [vast] inequities" when it comes to disease threats. Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

A new U.S. agency is a response to the fact that nobody was ready for the pandemic

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191872141/1192047177" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Wednesday

Donald Trump enters a political rally in Erie, Pa., in late July. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Trump's attorney tells NPR how he plans to defend against the latest charges

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191627739/1191671910" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Author Steven Millhauser doesn't mind if his new stories leave you uneasy

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191671840/1191671841" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Mandy Cohen speaks at a news conference in 2021. Bryan Anderson/AP hide caption

toggle caption
Bryan Anderson/AP

The new CDC director outlines 3 steps to rebuild trust with the public

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191302954/1191448569" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Tuesday

New CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen on her vision for the agency

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191412009/1191412010" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

Members of an female Afghan military platoon now face uncertain fate in the U.S.

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191164567/1191164568" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

How a suicide bombing in Pakistan shows spillover effect from Taliban's Afghanistan

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191164588/1191164589" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Unlikely heroes are stepping up at the Women's World Cup

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1191162396/1191164633" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Sunday

Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris on their book 'Nobody's Fool'

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1187992903/1187992904" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Meet the water sommelier advocating for clean drinking water

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1187992875/1187992876" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

How summer camp staff are protecting kids from extreme heat

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1187992861/1187992862" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Politics chat: NATO and the defense bill; Biden touts his role reviving the economy

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1187992784/1187992785" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Nishanth Injam on 'The Best Possible Experience', his collection of short stories

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1187992826/1187992827" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

We might be nearing the end of 'the sports pages' in newspapers as we know them

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1187992805/1187992806" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Local economies are getting a boost from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1187992882/1187992883" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

The newest trend in fashion is a wardrobe staple you probably own

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1187992812/1187992813" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Tuesday

Rick Hoyt, a fixture at the Boston Marathon with his dad, dies at 61

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1177770586/1177773751" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript