Craig Pittman
The author of "The Scent of Scandal" and "Manatee Insanity," and the co-author of "Paving Paradise."
The author of "The Scent of Scandal" and "Manatee Insanity," and the co-author of "Paving Paradise."
About Craig Pittman
Craig Pittman is a native Floridian. Born in Pensacola, he graduated from Troy State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work for the student paper prompted an agitated dean to label him "the most destructive force on campus." Since then he has covered a variety of newspaper beats and quite a few natural disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires and the Florida Legislature. Since 1998, he has covered environmental issues for Florida's largest newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times. He has won the Waldo Proffitt Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism in Florida four times, and twice won the top investigative reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists. Stories he has written for Sarasota magazine have won three first-place Charlie Awards from the Florida Magazine Association. He's the co-author, with Matthew Waite, of Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss, (2009) and the author of Manatee Insanity: Inside the War Over Florida's Most Famous Endangered Species (2010), both published by the University Press of Florida. His third non-fiction book, The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal, and the World's Most Beautiful Orchid, will hit stores in April.