About Ghost Herd
The Story
It started as an American success story. The Easterday family took a couple hundred acres of farmland in rural Washington state and grew it into a farming and ranching empire worth millions. Then, it all came crashing down. Ghost Herd tells the story of Cody Easterday, the man at the center of one of the largest cattle swindles in U.S. history. Easterday invented a “ghost herd” of 265,000 cattle that only existed on paper … and swindled companies including a meat-packing giant to the tune of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. Ghost Herd is a story of family and fraud, but also a story about the value of dirt and the shifting powers in the American West.
Host & Creator
Award-winning journalist Anna King shines a national spotlight on the complex stories of the Northwest – from complex nuclear waste cleanup, to mysterious cattle mutilations. Her work appears on KUOW, Northwest Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio and its member stations across the country. King received the David Douglas History Award from the Washington State Historical Society in 2016 for her “Daughters of Hanford” series and museum show. Her work has been recognized nationally and she has earned two Gracie awards, a Sigma Delta Chi medal and an Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting – on her news series about Cody Easterday’s major cattle swindle and its outfall. She’s been doggedly covering the story since it broke in the winter of 2021.
Press Kit
Access photos, logos, episode overviews, and audio samples in the link below. For press inquiries and promotional partnership opportunities, please contact KUOW Marketing Director Michaela Gianotti Boyle (michaela@kuow.org).
Contact us.
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Ghost Herd is a joint production of KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio and Northwest Public Broadcasting.
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If you have questions or feedback on Ghost Herd, get in touch at engage@kuow.org.
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Please contact KUOW Director of Marketing Michaela Gianotti Boyle at michaela@kuow.org.