Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Scott Gold Sells Third TV Drama (Exclusive)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Scott Gold is on a roll.

The reporter, a 15-year veteran of the Los Angeles Times, has covered the Bush-Gore recount, Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina, and has now sold his third drama script, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Lifetime has picked up a script for The Lion and the Lamb, a drama about a notorious drug cop who busts an all-American college student for pot and “flips” her into becoming a narc.

Gold will pen the script and executive produce the A+E Studios drama alongside Marc Shmuger (Lucy). Alexandra Loewy will produce the drama.

Lion marks the third script sale for Gold, who is taking a yearlong leave of absence from the newspaper to focus on his TV writing career.

See more Broadcast TV’s New 2014-15 Shows

Beyond Lion, Gold also has Cold Dead Hands set up at Sundance TV. Cold centers on Early “Trip” Thibodeaux III, the head of the NRA, whose wife is the queen bee of the American evangelical political movement, and explores how he navigates American culture, faith, politics and his home life.

Additionally, Spike TV is developing Deep Web, a drama produced by Tony Krantz‘s Flame Ventures with exec producers including Gary Oldman and Douglas Urbanski via their Flying Studio Pictures. The drama, which has a hefty penalty attached, is inspired by the Silk Road website and centers on a 26-year-old wunderkind and his rise from an “outlaw for the people” to the head of an online underworld of crime that he builds into a multibillion-dollar business.

Gold, who grew up in Charlottesville, Va., and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in journalism and concentration in anthropology, most recently anchored the Times‘ coverage of NASA’s mission to Mars. He’s a six-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, for his environmental and agricultural reporting and coverage of Katrina as well as for his 24-part series documenting change in South Central L.A., among others. He’s a member of the team of reporters who took home the Pulitzer for public service for their coverage of the municipal scandal in the city of Bell, Calif.

Gold is repped by Verve, Media Talent Group and Jackoway Tyerman.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit