Thomas Lake is a senior writer for CNN Digital and host of CNN Audio’s The James Brown Mystery podcast. He is also the author of “Unprecedented: The Election That Changed Everything.”

Reporting for CNN since 2015 and based in Atlanta, Lake has reported on numerous topics. Notably in 2019, he published an exclusive CNN investigative series, “Lost in the Woods with James Brown’s Ghost”, exploring unanswered questions around James Brown’s death and the many people still calling for an autopsy and criminal investigation. His podcast, The James Brown Mystery, expands upon that reporting and covers Brown’s complicated past, the mysterious death of his third wife, and the biggest questions surrounding his demise.

Prior to CNN, Lake reported at Sports Illustrated, Atlanta Magazine, St. Petersburg Times and The Florida Times-Union. His writing has also appeared in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

Throughout his decades-long career, he has covered presidential elections, written about bourbon thieves, B.B. King’s funeral, and a buzzer-beating shot in a college basketball game that actually saved people from a tornado. His story “The Boy They Couldn’t Kill” was named one of the 60 best features in the history of Sports Illustrated. And his first magazine story, “2 on 5,” won the Henry Luce Award for most outstanding story of 2008 across all Time Inc. publications. His work has also been anthologized in Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists and in four editions of the Best American Sports Writing.