James Ridgeway

James Ridgeway (born 1936) is a prominent American investigative journalist.

Career history

Ridgeway began his career as a contributor to "The New Republic", "Ramparts", and the "Wall Street Journal. Later, he was co-founder and editor of the political newsletters "Mayday", "Hard Times" and "The Elements".

Ridgeway became nationally known when he revealed in "The New Republic" that General Motors had hired private detectives to tail consumer advocate Ralph Nader in an attempt to dig up information that might discredit him (Nader was behind litigation which challenged the safety of the Corvair). Ridgeway's revelations of the company's snooping and dirty tricks prompted a Senate subcommittee led by Senator Ribicoff to summon James Roche, president of GM, to explain his company's harassment — and apologize. The incident catapulted auto safety into the public spotlight and helped send Nader's book, "Unsafe at Any Speed" (1965), to the top of the bestseller lists. [cite web |year=2004| title="The Beginnings" | format=html | work= Nader.org website | url=http://www.nader.org/template.php?/archives/7-CHAPTER-1-The-Beginnings.html#extended| accessdate=2006-04-20]

He served as Washington correspondent for "The Village Voice" where he worked from the mid-1970s until April 2006. Following his departure from the Voice, Ridgeway was hired by Mother Jones magazine to run its Washington DC bureau. On April 13, 2006's "Democracy Now" broadcast, Ridgeway told host Amy Goodman that Michael Lacey, the executive editor of the "Voice", "killed my column, and he asked me to submit ideas for articles to him one by one, which I did, and which he either ignored or turned down, except in one case...they won't say that I'm fired. I'm supposedly laid off." [cite web | author=Goodman, Amy| year=2006| title="Village Voice Shakeup: Top Investigative Journalist Fired, Prize Winning Writers Resign Follwing Merger with New Times Media," | format=html | work=Democracy Now website | url=http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/13/145245| accessdate=2006-04-20]

Books, films and periodical credits

Ridgeway is the author and or editor of twenty books, including "The Closed Corporation: American Universities in Crisis", "The Politics of Ecology", and, more recently, "The 5 Unanswered Questions About 9/11: What the 9/11 Commission Report Failed to Tell Us", "The Haiti Files: Decoding the Crisis", "Yugoslavia's Ethnic Nightmare" (a collection co-edited with Jasminka Udovicki), "A Pocket Guide to Environmental Bad Guys" (with Jeffrey St. Clair), and "Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, the Rise of a New White Culture". He also wrote the text for "Red Light: Inside the Sex Industry," with photographs by Sylvia Plachy. [cite web | title="Title list for basic search of author: Ridgeway, James" | format=html | work= Library of Congress Online Catalogue | url=http://catalog.loc.gov/| accessdate=2006-04-20] Ridgeway co-directed the companion film "Blood in the Face", as well as "Feed", a documentary on the 1992 presidential campaign. [cite web | title="James Ridgeway" | format=html | work= Internet Movie Database | url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0725910/ | accessdate=2006-04-20] He was also extensively interviewed for An Unreasonable Man, a 2007 documentary about Ralph Nader.His articles have also appeared in "New York Review of Books", "PARADE", "Harper's", "The Nation", "The Economist", "The New York Times Magazine", "The Wall Street Journal and other magazines and newspapers. [cite web | title="Author James Ridgeway" | format=html | work=Seven Stories Press Web site | url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0725910/ | accessdate=2006-04-20]

External links

*worldcat id|id=lccn-n79-82259
* [http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/09/sweet_subpoena.html "Sweet Subpoena: Nine Investigations That Could Spice Up the Next Congress"] , [http://www.motherjones.com "Mother Jones"] , September/October 2006.
* [http://ridgewayng.com/ Ridgewayng.com: Original reporting] . News video collaborations between Ridgeway and Alicia Ng. Retrieved April 13, 2006.
* [http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0507,mondo1,61134,6.html "Fear of Flying: Whistle-blowers say the FAA ignored a decade of pre–9-11"] (15 February 2005)
* [http://www.electronpress.com/default.asp?pl=http://www.electronpress.com/excerpts/ecopol.htm eText of "Politics of Ecology"]
* [http://www.gawker.com/news/village-voice/vv-staff-protests-ridgeways-firing-management-doesnt-care-165363.php 'VV' Staff Protests Ridgeway's Firing; Management Doesn't Care]
* [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/13/145245 "Village Voice Shakeup: Top Investigative Journalist Fired, Prize-Winning Writers Resign Following Merger with New Times Media"] Listen in [http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2006/april/audio/dn20060413.ra&proto=rtsp&start=10:50 Real Player] . Download in [http://www.archive.org/download/dn2006-0413/dn2006-0413-1_64kb.mp3 MP3] . Watch in 128K [http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2006/april/video/dnB20060413a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=10:50 Real Player Video stream] . Read [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/13/145245#transcript Transcript] . Host Amy Goodman interviews current and former staff James Ridgeway, Nat Hentoff, Tom Robbins, Sydney Schanberg and two reporters Mark Jacobson and Tim Redmond.

References