Michael has covered the business and culture of film as a reporter and editor for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and others. He has written for Deadline since 2016. Earlier, he was a Los Angeles-based editor for the online news service Inside.com, and in the 1990s worked as a film and television producer. A native of Western Pennsylvania, Cieply lived there and in the Detroit area before attending the University of Michigan, and then graduate school at Stanford University. He has lived in Southern California since 1982, when he joined Forbes Magazine as a correspondent in its Los Angeles bureau.