Kurt Eichenwald | |
|---|---|
 Eichenwald in 2009 | |
| Born | Kurt Alexander Eichenwald (1961-06-28)June 28, 1961 (age 63) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Swarthmore College |
| Notable works | The Informant,Conspiracy of Fools |
| Notable awards | George Polk Award Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism |
| Spouse | Theresa Pearse |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | |
| KurtEichenwald.com | |
Kurt Alexander Eichenwald (born June 28, 1961) is an American journalist and aNew York Times bestselling author of five books, one of which,The Informant (2000), was made intoa motion picture in 2009. He was a senior writer andinvestigative reporter withThe New York Times,Condé Nast's business magazine,Portfolio, and later was a contributing editor withVanity Fair and a senior writer withNewsweek. Eichenwald had been employed byThe New York Times since 1986 and primarily coveredWall Street andcorporate topics such asinsider trading,accounting scandals, andtakeovers, but also wrote about a range of issues includingterrorism, theBill Clinton pardon controversy, federal health care policy, andsexual predators on theInternet.
Eichenwald was born in 1961. He graduated fromSt. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas andSwarthmore College. His extracurricular activities during his time at Swarthmore included being a founding member ofSixteen Feet, ana cappellavocal octet.[1]
During his first months of college, Eichenwald sustained aconcussion, which was soon followed by noticeableepileptic seizures. Diagnosed withepilepsy in November of his freshman year, he continued to attend school despite repeatedgrand mal seizures.[2]
After having two outdoor seizures on campus, he was dismissed from Swarthmore, in apparent violation of federal law.[2] He contacted theUnited States Department of Health and Human Services and fought his way back into school,[2][3] an experience that he has credited with giving him the willingness to take on institutions in hismuckraking reporting.[citation needed] He graduated with his class in 1983, receiving a degree inpolitical science, with distinction.[2]
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Following a year at the Election and Survey Unit atCBS News, Eichenwald joinedThe New York Times in 1985 as a news clerk forHedrick Smith, the paper's chief Washington correspondent. When Smith began writing his bookThe Power Game, Eichenwald became his research assistant,[4] leaving in 1986 to become associate editor atThe National Journal in Washington.[5] During those years, he was a frequent contributor toThe New York Times op-ed page, writing humorous pieces about political issues.[6][7]
Eichenwald returned toThe New York Times later in 1986 as a news clerk for the national desk in New York, participating in the paper's writing program for aspiring reporters.[8]
His arrival on Wall Street coincided with the explosion of white-collar criminal investigations in finance. He wrote about the stock trading scandals involving speculatorIvan Boesky and junk bond kingMichael Milken, as well as the Treasury markets scandal atSalomon Brothers. He also covered the excesses of the takeover era, including the biggest deal of the time, the acquisition ofRJR Nabisco byKohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company.
In 1995, Eichenwald began writing about assorted corporate misdeeds. He wrote a multi-part series forThe New York Times, exposing significant deficiencies in the American business of providingkidney dialysis treatments. The series led to a review by theClinton Administration of ways to create financial incentives to improve quality in dialysis treatment, a focus of Eichenwald’s series. The articles were honored in 1996 with aGeorge Polk Award for excellence in journalism, the first of two that he was awarded.
After his dialysis series, he joined with Martin Gottlieb, a health reporter with the newspaper, in a multi-year investigation ofColumbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, which at the time was the largest health-care company in the world.
In 1998, Eichenwald was attached toThe New York Times’ senior reporter program. He also teamed with another of the newspaper's reporters,Gina Kolata, for a multi-year investigation into how business interests affect the nation's system for medical research. Eichenwald and Kolata both were honored as finalists for thePulitzer Prize for their work.
With the explosion of corporate scandals in 2002 –Enron,WorldCom,Arthur Andersen,Tyco and others – Eichenwald reported on the unfolding scandals and becoming a television fixture on such programs asCharlie Rose andThe NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in explaining the meaning of the latest developments. Eichenwald, along with several otherNew York Times reporters, was selected as a finalist for thePulitzer Prize in 2003 for his work on thecorporate scandals.
In 2005, he wrote a group ofNew York Times articles about onlinechild pornography. One of those articles was aboutJustin Berry, a then-18-year-old who operatedpornographic websites featuring himself and other teen males.[9][10] For this reporting, Eichenwald received thePayne Award for Ethics in Journalism for "preserving the editorial integrity of an important story while reaching out to assist his source, Justin Berry, in reporting on Berry’s involvement in child pornography."[11]
Five months after publication of the article, Eichenwald and Berry both gave Congressional testimony about online child abuse before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Eichenwald claimed in the testimony that he had stumbled across Berry while reporting on documents that proved to be fraudulent, leaving him believing there was no story but fearful there was a child in danger. "I began trying to figure out if it was real, not for the purpose of doing a story because truthfully I did not, it did not occur to me there would be a story there," Eichenwald testified.[12]
After confirming that Berry was a real person in danger, Eichenwald testified, he along with two others launched an effort to rescue the young man. Weeks after that effort had been completed, during which Eichenwald met Berry, Berry contacted him and said he wanted to reveal everything he knew about the online child pornography business for a news article in hopes of "bringing down" the illicit enterprise.
In 2007 it came to light that Eichenwald had given Berry an undisclosed $2,000 before writing the reports;[13][14]The New York Times published a note stating that "the check should have been disclosed to editors and readers".[15] During his testimony that same day as a prosecution witness against one of Berry's abusers, Eichenwald said he and his wife had used the money as a means of forcing Berry to reveal his identity during the rescue effort.[16] Eichenwald testified that when Berry offered to become a source for a news article, he told the young man that he could not begin any reporting until the financial conflict was resolved by Berry's returning the money to him from a lawful source of funds. Eichenwald testified that Berry obtained a loan from his grandmother which he used to repay him in July 2005, at which point the reporting began.[17][18]
In the fall of 2006 Eichenwald leftThe New York Times and joined the staff of newly created business magazineCondé Nast Portfolio as a senior writer.[19] He was recruited by Jim Impoco, a formerNew York Times editor and managing editor of the new Portfolio. The first edition of the magazine was published in April 2007. However, both Eichenwald and Impoco had a very short tenure atPortfolio. An Eichenwald article about terrorism that had been championed by Impoco was killed by editor-in-chiefJoanne Lipman, leading to a significant dispute between the two editors. After several months of tension between them, Lipman fired Impoco in August 2007;[20] Eichenwald resigned on the same day.Portfolio was not a commercial success, and was closed in April 2009. The failure of such a high-profile project was seen as a major setback for Condé Nast.
In 2012, Eichenwald joinedVanity Fair as a contributing editor where he wrote business articles for the magazine and an online column focusing on government and politics.[21] In 2013, while continuing his work forVanity Fair he joinedNewsweek as a senior writer.[22]
In October 2016, Eichenwald wrote an article published in Newsweek alleging coordination between Russian agents and then presidential candidateDonald Trump, on the grounds that Trump quoted from a retractedSputnik article at a campaign event. In February 2017, Sputnik editor Bill Moran filed a libel lawsuit against Newsweek, which later removed the two relevant stories by Eichenwald as part of a settlement. At the time of the settlement, Eichenwald was no longer employed by Newsweek.[23][24]
In December 2016, Eichenwald was criticized for breaching journalistic ethics by tweeting an unsubstantiated claim that Donald Trump was "institutionalized in a mental hospital" in 1990.[25][26]
Eichenwald's reporting on Prudential led to his first book,Serpent on the Rock (1995), which focused primarily on thelimited partnership scandal at Prudential Securities, which is alleged to have defrauded 340,000 people out of eight billion dollars.[27] The book was positively reviewed byKirkus reviews, with a comparison to the bestsellerBarbarians at the Gate.[28]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Part One ofBooknotes interview with Kurt Eichenwald onThe Informant, February 4, 2001,C-SPAN | |
| Part Two ofBooknotes interview, February 11, 2001,C-SPAN |
In 2000, he published his second book,The Informant. While still a business book,The Informant was much more of a non-fictionpolice procedural depicting the inner workings of the FBI in detail. The book was subsequently adapted as the feature filma film adaptation. The movie, adark comedy directed bySteven Soderbergh and starringMatt Damon, was released in 2009.
Eichenwald's investigation ofEnron led to his third and most successful book,Conspiracy of Fools (2005). The book madeThe New York Times bestseller list in April 2005.[29] The book was marketed as "a gripping corporate thriller with more plot twists than aJohn Grisham novel" byRandom House.[30]It wasoptioned as a movie byWarner Brothers, to potentially starLeonardo DiCaprio.[31] However, the film was never made.
In 2012, he published his fourth book,500 Days. Also aNew York Times bestseller,[citation needed] the book chronicled the events in governments around the world in the 500 days after the 9/11 attacks. It revealed details of the American program of NSA eavesdropping, torture policy, the American government's briefings on the coming attacks before 9/11, and the details of debates within the British government.
Eichenwald's fifth book,A Mind Unraveled, was published in 2018 by Random House. The book is a memoir about medical struggles that almost killed Eichenwald when he was a young man.[32]
Eichenwald is a two-time winner of theGeorge Polk Award for Excellence in Journalism in 1995 and 1997, for articles about the dialysis industry and fraud at the nation's largest hospital company, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation.[33][34] He was a finalist for thePulitzer Prize in 2000, along with hisNew York Times colleagueGina Kolata, for an investigation of medical clinical trials.[35] In 2006, he won thePayne Award for Ethics in Journalism and the Best in Business Enterprise Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.[36]
In a 1987 article about his illness forThe New York Times Magazine, Eichenwald wrote about his epilepsy diagnosis at the age of 18 in 1979:
The doctor warned me – and so did members of my family soon afterward – that if I did not keep my epilepsy a secret, people would fear me and I would be subject to discrimination. Even now, seven years after that scene in the dining hall, it is difficult for me to say that I have epilepsy. Back then, it was impossible. In the years since, I have had hundreds of various types of seizures. I have experienced the mental, physical and emotional side effects caused by changes in the anticonvulsant drugs I take each day. Yet, for the first two years, I refused to learn about epilepsy. My fears of being found out were my real concern.[2]
His willingness to reveal his personal battle to readers won him praise.[citation needed] He was awarded a journalism prize from theEpilepsy Foundation of America for his 1987 article.[citation needed] In a 2002NewsBios article titled "Kurt Succeeded Where So Many Others Would Have Quit," Dean Rotbart wrote:
While Eichenwald has never since hidden his epilepsy, he also didn't make it a centerpiece of his life. After writing his story, his mission was clear and it was not to become aposter boy for the illness. "My whole life from the time I got sick was focused on making sure that I was a student, a journalist, a husband, and a father," Kurt tells me. "Not that I was someone with this condition."[3]
Kurt Eichenwald @kurteichenwaldReplying to @jew_goldstein
This is his wife, you caused a seizure. I have your information and have called the police to report the assault.
Dec 15, 2016[37]
In late 2016, after making critical remarks aboutDonald Trump, Eichenwald was intentionally sentepileptogenicGIFs overTwitter.[38][39] In mid-December, Eichenwald participated in an interview regarding Trump withTucker Carlson.[40] Following that, a second epileptogenic GIF arrived over Twitter, causing Eichenwald to have a seizure. He announced he would be taking a short break from Twitter while he pursued legal action against the sender.[41][42][43]
In March 2017, a Maryland man was arrested in connection with the incident and charged with cyberstalking.[44][45][46] The federal cyberstalking charge was later dropped, although he still faced one count of aggravated assault,[47] with the tweet being considered "a deadly weapon."[48] The trial of the suspect began on December 16, 2019.[49] In September 2020, Eichenwald won a his civil suit, although the criminal trial is still pending.[50]
Eichenwald is married to Theresa Pearse, aninternist.[51] They have three children.[52]
