Phelim McAleer

Phelim McAleer is a filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has produced documentaries for CBC (Canada) and RTE (Ireland) and two independent feature length documentaries. Before becoming a filmmaker, McAleer was a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times in Eastern Europe. He also covered Romania and Bulgaria for the Economist. Before that he covered Ireland for the UK Sunday Times.

He has worked as a filmmaker and journalist in many countries including Romania, Uganda, Madagascar, Bulgaria, Chile, Indonesia, Canada and China. McAleer started his career as a journalist working for the Crossmaglen Examiner a local Northern Ireland newspaper in Co. Armagh. The newspaper covered stories in the area, which was known as ‘Bandit country’ because of the ferocity of the IRA campaign in the area. McAleer then moved to the Irish News in Belfast. At the Irish News, Northern Ireland’s largest selling daily newspaper, he worked as a journalist covering the Northern Ireland troubles and peace process before becoming night editor.

He co-produced The Search for Tristan’s Mum which was broadcast on RTE 1, the Irish state television station, in 2005. It featured the shocking case of the toddler Tristan Dowse, who was adopted by an Irish couple at birth and then abandoned in an Indonesian orphanage two years later. The Search for Tristan’s Mum was selected for Input 2006, a showcase for the best programs from national public broadcasters from around the world. It was selected by industry professionals and screened at Input 2006 in Taiwan in May.

In 2009, he produced and directed Not Evil Just Wrong, a film which examined and critiqued current concerns about global warming. The film highlights the tragic consequences of the first triumph of the environmental movement, the ban on DDT, which has resulted needlessly in the deaths of more than 40 million children and adults in the developing world. Previously, McAleer produced and directed Mine Your Own Business (2006) the first documentary that asks difficult questions of the environmental movement. As a result, 80 NGOs, including Greenpeace, called for the film to be banned when it was screened in the National Geographic auditorium in Washington DC.

McAleer has appeared on or is a regular contributor to an array of international media organizations including Fox News, CNN and the BBC. He has been interviewed on over 100 US and international radio shows including Hugh Hewitt and the Dennis Miller show.