Journalista – Details, episodes & analysis

The untold tale of the woman who broke one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history.

The true story of Courtney “Cookie” Hood, former model and ex-wife of a Colombian drug cartel kingpin, hired to manage the CBS/60 Minutes field office in Managua, Nicaragua during the civil war in the ‘80s.  What starts as another big party for her, ends up being the history making adventure of a lifetime, blowing the lid off the Iran-Contra scandal and almost taking down the Reagan presidency.

Award winning filmmaker, Steven Esteb, takes us into the dangerous and improbable lives of Cookie and her team of courageous wartime journalists covering the civil wars, revolutions, and US missteps in Central America.  

JOURNALISTA is dangerous, irreverent, insatiable, and hilarious.  An inside look at the insane world of combat journalism.  They worked hard, and they partied harder.

Stephen Kinzer (former bureau chief of the New York Times) writes: “During the 1980s and 1990s, Cookie Hood was the driving force behind the most successful television coverage of Central America that appeared anywhere in the United States.”

Cookie uses her unique mix of charm, balls, and passion for social justice, to get through checkpoints, into jungle military camps, and the highest levels of government.  She's also a clear and present danger to the shadow U.S. government that is using Central America as a right-wing terror experiment in their fight against communism.

Cookie and her cohorts are brilliant trainwrecks speeding down a path to self- destruction. At the same time, they might just change the world.

Hosted and Created by Steven Esteb

Produced by Sean J. Donnelly  

Executive Producers: Jason Waggenspack, Ellen K & Roy Laughlin