He has specially addressed issues of racism and conflict in Southern Africa and politics in Mexico and South America, as well as poverty among youth in the United States, and is well known for his writing on surfing.
1998 saw the publication of Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country, which deals with the bleak lives of American teenagers in spite of the United States’ economic affluence.
In the July 20th, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, Finnegan profiled Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona and his role in the conflict over immigration in that border state.
His "Talk of the Town" comment on "Borderlines," which addresses the U.S. political stalemate over immigration reform, appeared in the magazine's issue for July 26, 2010.
[5] Andy Martin, author and surfing columnist, wrote in Literary Review, "Reading this book is like riding in the tube alongside him, looking through a dreamy, luminous telescope that magnifies birth and death, genesis and apocalypse.
In 1994, his article “Deep East Texas” won the Edward M. Brecher Award for Achievement in the Field of Journalism from the Drug Policy Foundation.
In 2002, Hunter College, City University of New York, honored him with the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism for his article "Leasing the Rain" on the fight to control fresh water.