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Jack Shafer (born November 14, 1951[not verified in body] is an American journalist who wrote about media forPolitico until June 2024.[1] Prior to joiningPolitico, he worked forReuters, wrote and edited forSlate, and edited two city weeklies,Washington City Paper andSF Weekly.[when?][not verified in body]
Much of Shafer's writing focuses on what he sees as a lack of precision and rigor in reporting by the mainstream media,[citation needed] which he says "thinks its duty is to keep you cowering in fright."[2] He has frequently written about media coverage of theWar on Drugs.[not verified in body]
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Jack Shafer was born on November 14, 1951,[where?][citation needed] and grew up inKalamazoo, Michigan, describing himself as "the son of lapsed Catholics".[3] As anewspaper boy in his youth, he delivered hardcopies of theKalamazoo Gazette for five years.[3] He chose not to do an undergraduate journalism degree, graduating instead from Western Michigan University with aB.A. in communications.[when?][3] In his first five years after graduation, Shafer lived in California, "then hitched through Asia, New Zealand and Australia".[3]
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Shafer has been writing and editing as an American journalist since the 1980s, and writing as a columnist since the early 2000s.[3] After his postgraduate travels, he returned to the United States andfreelanced until being hired as a managing editor by the libertarian magazineInquiry; he would remain with it until it ceased publication in 1984.[3] Early, Shafer would also do editing forSF Weekly.[when?][citation needed]
Washington City Paper'sRuss Smith hired Shafer as an editor in 1985—described by Mark Lisheron of theAmerican Journalism Review as "his [Shafer's] real break"—a position he'd hold until he joinedSlate magazine online, after departingCity Paper in 1995.[3] About Smith's hiring, Shafer said, "I will always be grateful, although I reserve the right to be peculiar about how I express that gratitude".[3]
AtSlate, he wrote about the media and other topics; his 15 years of writing and editing there included penning its "Press Box" column, which he began in 2000.[3] He was laid off with a number of others bySlate in August 2011,[3] going on to work forReuters, before joiningPolitico.[when?][citation needed] Shafer wrote most recently about media forPolitico (through June 2024).[1]
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Responding to and confirming a reader tip, Shafer reported thatGerald Posner,The Daily Beast's chief investigative reporter, had plagiarized—presented "identical or nearly identical"—sentences (five in number) from a single story published byThe Miami Herald.[4][5] Thereafter, Posner issued a "no-reservationmea culpa",The Daily Beast published a correction, and Shafer responded with approval for the acknowledgment, by both, of the plagiarism.[4][5]
However, three days later, Shafer published further cases perceived as plagiarism—content from aMiami Herald blog, aMiami Herald editorial,Texas Lawyer and a health care journalism blog[6][better source needed]—from Posner's work, leading to Posner's departure fromThe Daily Beast.[4][7][8] Posner offered an explanation of ways in which the plagiarism might have occurred, and explanation which has received critical review.[4][7]
Much of Shafer's writing focuses on what he sees as a lack of precision and rigor in reporting by the mainstream media,[according to whom?] which he says "thinks its duty is to keep you cowering in fright."[2] He has frequently written about media coverage of theWar on Drugs.[citation needed]
Shafer "famously had zero use for [journalistic] awards", which "he groused, were a parade of self-congratulatory 'industry peacockery'", and so did not seek them out (the irony of which has been noted, given articles of his, e.g., "So You Won a Pulitzer: Who Cares?").[9] In his further writing on the subject, he proposed consideration of new awards categories, including "Most Compromised Local Paper", "Most Predictable Critic", "Most Tractable White House Reporter", and "Worst Editorial Page".[9]
Shafer wrote early in his career—through the early 1980s—forInquiry, a libertarian magazine, and has written about "his ownlibertarian politics"; he has asserted in interview, however, that "they are driven in their criticism by a deep suspicion of authority more than any particular ideology".[3] In particular, he appreciates approaches to criticism that are "clear-eyed", an attribute he ascribes to two "unapologetic leftists" that he admires,A.J. Liebling andAlexander Cockburn (having written a "paean" to Liebling, whom he is said to idolise).[3]
In 2000, following the U.S. national elections, he presented his views as follows:
I agree with theLibertarian Party platform: much smaller government, much lower taxes, an end toincome redistribution, repeal of the drug laws, fewergun laws, a dismantledwelfare state, an end tocorporate subsidies,First Amendment absolutism, a scaled-backwarfare state. (You get the idea.)"[10]
Later he wrote, "Traditionally, the state censors and marginalizes voices while private businesses tend to remain tolerant."[11]
On April 20, 2020 Shafer expressed opposition to theLocal Journalism Sustainability Act, saying, "You wouldn't put a dead man on a ventilator, would you?".[12]
Judith Miller, writing in her 2015 autobiography, harshly addresses Shafer's criticism of what he termed was her "wretched" reporting on Iraq inThe New York Times—in at least six of his pieces inSlate—referring to his writing as "assaults" or "personal attacks", to his own reporting as "erroneou[s]", and arguing that he "never once sought a response from me", suggesting that his motivation was to achieve "buzz and internet clicks".[13]
Shafer is married to Nicole Arthur, who has worked as a features editor in the Style section ofThe Washington Post; they have two daughters.[3] Mark Lisheron's article in theAJR desscribes him as "follow[ing] baseball, but... repelled by the $9 cup of beer at the park", and as one who has "force[d] himself outdoors... add[ing] birding to hiking, which has taken him from Newfoundland to the Galapagos Islands".[3]
