Phelim McAleer
Phelim McAleer is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, playwright, podcaster and a New York Times bestselling author.He began his career in journalism covering the Northern Ireland Troubles first as a reporter in Crossmaglen, South Armagh (known as Bandit Country) and then for The Irish News in Belfast. He subsequently worked for the (UK) Sunday Times and covered Eastern Europe for the Financial Times newspaper and The Economist.
He has made several movies and documentaries and recently has specialized in verbatim podcasts and plays. Most recently he produced and presented the 2025 plays Trans on Trial, based entirely on the transcripts of a dramatic five-day UK Charity Commission trial examining the Trans issue, and the Grooming Gangs Cover-Up, a verbatim film revealing the true story behind the UK Muslim “Grooming Gangs,”.
These provocative productions followed the immersive podcast Climate Change on Trial, a daily reenactment of the Steyn Vs Mann defamation trial and among the most popular science podcasts worldwide. Professor Michael Mann sued writer and broadcaster Mark Steyn for claiming his climate alarmist “hockey stick” graph was fraudulent.
In 2023, McAleer and wife Ann McElhinney traveled to Israel after the October 7 massacres to interview survivors and those who lost family and friends. From those interviews, they produced a verbatim play: OCTOBER 7, which had a six-week, off-Broadway run. It was the only play in New York that needed permanent police protection.
The New York Post said the play was “spellbinding,” the Jewish Journal described it as an “astonishing collage” and “unflinching.”
Theatre Scene said OCTOBER 7 was an “incredibly powerful” play that has to be seen by everyone.
Lawyer and academic Alan Dershowitz said the play was “absolutely brilliant.” “This just allowed people to speak for themselves. You were put back in time. You were hearing their voices. It’s brilliantly structured. It has everything you want. It has drama, veritas, emotion – everything you want in a play. And that’s why I want this play to be seen by as many people as humanly possible.”
Holocaust historian Leslie Bell said:“I expected to walk out of the play devastated. I couldn’t imagine someone tackling that subject without traumatizing the audience. I was prepared to hear my heart break. Then something remarkable happened. I walked out of the play filled with hope for humanity. I listened to terrible stories, yet the way those stories were presented showed me the strength, resilience, heroics and hope for humanity…I want the world to see this play.
McAleer is also a New York Times best-selling author and one of the most successful crowdfunders in the world. Together with Ann McElhinney, he has raised $6m in 8 separate crowdfunding campaigns. Their movie Gosnell – The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer was the most successful film project ever on Indiegogo. It raised $2.3 million in just 45 days.
McAleer produced and co-wrote the movie Gosnell – The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer. He co-wrote the NYT Best Seller Gosnell – The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer. The book debuted at #3 Amazon Best Seller and sold out in 3 days after publication.
His most recent movie My Son Hunter (2022), starring Laurence Fox and Gina Carano, has been a massive media event with The Daily Kos and the Guardian writing 5,000 words about the movie before they had even seen it. The New Yorker devoted 2,000 words to their coverage of the movie. Newsweek wrote about it five times – the Guardian twice. It was also covered in the Washington Post, Politico, LA Magazine and the Daily Mail.
With his wife, award-winning journalist and filmmaker Ann McElhinney, McAleer founded the Unreported Story Society, specializing in verbatim dramas, plays, and podcasts.
McAleer most recently wrote and produced the verbatim play THE GROOMING GANGS COVER-UP, describing it as “one of the most important projects we have ever produced. It is also one of the most disturbing.”
British actor Dominic Frisby, who plays Judge Peter Rook in the play, said that he took on the project because it “reveals one of the most barbaric crimes ever to have taken place in the UK.”
“There is no added drama, no fake ‘based on a true story.’ This is the hard truth that people need to know. Young girls from dysfunctional families – the most vulnerable section of society, the people who needed help and protection the most – were abused and abandoned by the state and those whose job it was to protect them. Everyone needs to see this film,” said McElhinney.
McAleer also wrote the hit verbatim play FBI Lovebirds: UNDERCOVERS, based on the text messages of rogue FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. HBO’s Vice News described it as “the most dangerous play in Washington.”
McAleer has produced and written several podcasts with his wife Ann McElhinney, including The Ann & Phelim Scoop Podcast, The Harvey Weinstein Trial: Unfiltered Podcast, Kevin Spacey Trial: Unfiltereed Podcast, and Serial Killer: A True Crime Podcast, which reached the top 10 in all true crime podcasts worldwide.
McAleer has produced documentaries for the BBC, CBC (Canada) and RTE (Ireland), as well as two independent feature-length documentaries. Before becoming a filmmaker, Phelim was a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times in Eastern Europe, and he covered Romania and Bulgaria for The Economist.
He directed and produced FrackNation – A Journalist’s Search for the Fracking Truth, a documentary on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and the natural gas boom in the US and abroad. Variety said it was a “briskly paced…mischievous pic.”
He also produced and directed Not Evil Just Wrong (2009), a film which examines the devastating consequences of global warming hysteria. And Mine Your Own Business – the first documentary that asks difficult questions of the environmental movement. Canada’s The National Post said “Mine Your Own Business is devastating because it combats prejudices and fantasies with pictures that refute thousands of weasel words.”
Before that, he covered Ireland for the UK Sunday Times.
McAleer lives in Venice, California with his two cats Mr. Top Cat and Mr. Scaredy Cat.