Deborah Santos is the director of The War Tapes, a documentary detailing the personal stories of soldiers in the Iraq War. It was the first of its kind in that she sent the soldiers video cameras so they can shoot raw footage of their actual, on hand experiences in combat. The film won several honors, including Best International Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival and Best International Documentary at BritDoc in 2006.

Scranton also produced and directed "Bad Voodoo's War," for Frontline/PBS and ITVS. The show first aired April 1, 2008. It reprised her virtual embed technique, focusing on a squad of U.S.soldiers deploying as part of the "Surge."

In 2007, she was a visiting fellow at The Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University with the Global Media Project in the Global Security Program and taught a senior seminar on documentary filmmaking and social change.

Scranton speaks internationally on her "virtual embed" filmmaking technique. She has spoken at conferences and institutions including TED2007, Nordic Media Festival, The Frontline Club, Harvard, Yale, Center For Irregular Warfare - Quantico, Camp Lejeune and the Tribeca Cinema Film Series. Scranton started her career in television covering sports events including the Tour de France, the Winter Olympics, and US Open Tennis and was also a special assignment reporter. Her work has been profiled in publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune.

A former US ski team member, she resides on a farm in the mountains of New Hampshire.