page_title: Tony Ortega
section_title: Criticism of Scientology
hierarchical_section_title: Tony Ortega / Career / Criticism of Scientology
caption_attribution_description: English: Two men - head and shoulders image on grey background
context_page_description: Anthony "Tony" Ortega is an American blogger who is best known for his daily blog about the Church of Scientology called The Underground Bunker. He was executive editor of The Raw Story from 2013 until 2015. Previously, he had been a journalist at the New Times LA, the editor-in-chief of the Broward-Palm Beach New Times from 2005 to 2007 and the editor-in-chief of The Village Voice from 2007 to 2012. In 2015 he was executive editor of the YouTube channel TheLipTV. He is author of the non-fiction book The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, about journalist Paulette Cooper and the Church of Scientology's attempts to silence her after her own book was published.
context_section_description: Ortega first reported on Scientology in 1995 while working at the Phoenix New Times and continued covering the subject throughout his career under various media outlets in the Voice Media Group. In September 2012, Ortega publicly announced his resignation from The Village Voice in a post to the Voice's "Runnin' Scared" blog. According to former staffers, Ortega's "exit from the Voice was not his decision" and "his relentless pursuit of scoops on the controversial church may have been a distraction during his final months at the paper."
  The executive editor of the Voice told the Media Decoder blog of The New York Times that Ortega "...did a great job for us and managed a difficult transition in a miserable economy... During that time he became the single most informed reporter on Scientology. No one is better positioned to write the book on that organization.” According to a 2012 Observer article, some staffers at the Voice expressed concern over Ortega's exclusive focus on writing anti-Scientology pieces. “He was increasingly obsessed with Scientology and had neglected almost all of his editorial duties at the paper,” an ex-staffer said. “Sometimes he wouldn’t even edit features.”
  Ortega was featured in Alex Gibney's documentary Going Clear, discussing how Scientology smeared critics. On the way to the Sundance Film Festival both Ortega and another film participant, ex-Scientologist Marc Headley, were surveilled and photographed at Salt Lake City airport by presumed members of the church, with the New York Times noting "The documentary showed ex-Scientologists being harassed and surveilled, a tactic that according to the film, is part of the doctrine of the church: its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, said that all of the church’s attackers were criminals whose own misdeeds should be exposed".
  In 2015 Ortega was informed by the United States Attorney that his emails had been hacked by New York private investigator Eric Saldarriaga in the previous year. Saldarriaga had received payment by clients whose names remain private and used an illegal overseas hacking group to break into several private accounts including Ortega's and ex-Scientologist and former church spokesperson Mike Rinder. Both Ortega and Rinder filed victim impact statements and requested the client's name(s) be made public. Goldstein in the New York Times reported "The client is said to be someone who has done investigations on behalf of the Church of Scientology, said people briefed on the case but not authorized to speak publicly." 50 victims of hacking were identified and Saldarriaga was given a 3-month prison sentence in June 2015. Saldarriaga claimed he feared retaliation from naming clients while cooperating with the FBI and was never required to name the client publicly in court.
  In September 2018 Ortega started publishing short video clips of issues in Scientology that had been previously covered by his website. In the first video he linked Doug Dohring, the founder and CEO of Age of Learning, Inc. (also known as ABCmouse) with large donations to the Church of Scientology.
caption: Jim Underdown and Tony Ortega at HowdyCon 2019
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-GX85", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2019:06:22 09:30:32", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2386", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "33664", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7315", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "3200", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:06:21 16:51:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:06:21 16:51:18", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "33/50", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Fine weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "19", "EXIF SubSecTime": "345", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "345", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "345", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3064", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "33140", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "39", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "3834"}