Jason Leopold is co-founder of The Public Record, and author of the book, News Junkie, which has been optioned by a Hollywood production company. Leopold was most recently senior editor for the online news magazine, Truthout.org.
He has worked as the Los Angeles bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswire and as a city editor and reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He is a two-time winner of a Project Censored award for his investigative work on Halliburton and Enron, and is featured in the 2005 and 2007 editions of Censored: The News that Didn’t Make the News.
In March 2008, he was awarded the Thomas Jefferson award by The Military Religious Freedom Foundation for a series of stories on the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. Military.
He has written over 2,000 stories on the California energy crisis and received the Dow Jones Journalist of the Year Award in 2001. Leopold also reported extensively on Enron’s downfall and was the first journalist to land an interview with former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling following Enron’s bankruptcy filing in December 2001. He was a consultant on the Enron documentary, “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” His reporting has been cited in more than forty books.
Leopold’s work has been published in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Salon, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Financial Times, Alternet, Z Magazine, Earth Island Journal, Homeland Security Today, and numerous other national and international publications. Leopold has interviewed on more than 200 radio stations discussing politics and the state of mainstream American journalism.
He appears weekly on KRXA radio in Monterey and is the U.S correspondent for 95bFM in Auckland, New Zealand. He has also appeared on CNBC and National Public Radio as an expert on energy policy and has also been the keynote speaker at more than two-dozen energy industry conferences around the country. He regularly is invited to speak to college students across the country about ethics in journalism and investigative reporting.
Leopold reported in May 2006, citing unnamed sources, that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had secured an indictment against former White House official Karl Rove for his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. The story set off a firestorm of criticism against Leopold on the Internet and led the Washington Post to publish several reports about Leopold's past issues with substance abuse, his ethics as a journalist, and the reliability of his reports. In June 2006, Rove's attorney said Fitzgerald provided him with a letter "clearing" Rove of wrongdoing. The letter has never been released publicly.
He can be contacted via email: jasonleopold@pubrecord.or g
Would you come back? This is the question that dogs me every morning as I drive through the streets of New Orleans. Past the rebuilt homes and ramshackle shells, past the fresh trim jobs and spray-painted search crosses, past the cleared concrete slabs and the piles of debris that still litter every block, I travel and interrogate my own strength. I had never visited this area before Hurricane Katrina devastated it three years ago, so I am spared the firsthand comparisons of before... Read Full Story
A federal appeals court temporarily blocked former White House Counsel Harriet Miers from testifying before a House panel next week about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, the latest development in Congress’s yearlong effort to obtain information about the Bush administration’s role in the matter. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said House Judiciary Committee attorneys have until next Wednesday at 4 p.m. to argue why a ruling issued by a federal district judge last... Read Full Story
Cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners is an issue about which John McCain cares deeply. He should: As we all know, that’s exactly what he endured for more than five years in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War. That’s why it’s unsurprising that, back in 2005, McCain filed an amendment to a Defense Department bill explicitly banning the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by U.S. personnel anywhere in the world, and prohibiting U.S. military interrogators from... Read Full Story
A former Halliburton executive promoted by Dick Cheney to run one of the oil service company’s subsidiaries when the vice president was chief executive of the firm pleaded guilty Wednesday in Houston federal court to paying more than $180 million in bribes to Nigerian government officials so Halliburton could win a liquefied natural gas plant contract. Albert Jack Stanley pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act... Read Full Story
On July 18, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made the unusual decision of posting two documents on her website, accompanied by a harshly worded statement, denying reports that her husband, Todd Palin, and officials in her office leaked her ex-brother-in-law’s confidential personnel files. The documents: a release signed by Wooten in May giving his ex-wife's attorney access to his "entire employment file including but not limited to any and all disciplinary action(s) and complaints, and personnel... Read Full Story
During the run-up to the election that made Sarah Palin the governor of Alaska, the right-wing pro-life group Eagle Forum sent a detailed questionnaire to each of the candidates. Among its many questions was this one: “In relationship to families, what are your top three priorities if elected governor?” This was Sarah Palin’s response: “1) Creating an atmosphere where parents feel welcome to choose the venues of education for their children; 2) Preserving the definition of... Read Full Story
When John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, his campaign and much of the U.S. news media depicted the Alaska governor as an ethics “reformer” whose meteoric political rise came from her confronting corruption within her own state Republican Party. But a closer look at Palin's short political career reveals that she committed some of the same ethical lapses that she has attacked, especially during her unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 2002. She... Read Full Story
Documents are available for download at the bottom of the story. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s vendetta against the state trooper who divorced her sister may have spilled over into a broader retaliation against Alaska’s police with more than $2 million slashed from their budget as well as the elimination of temporary staff positions and the firing of the public safety commissioner, according to police representatives. Law enforcement and police union officials, who requested anonymity before... Read Full Story
During the time that Bill Clinton was rocking the Democratic convention, ABC, CBS, and Fox were showing re-runs, NBC was showing the second hour of "America's Got Talent," and the CW was showing the second season finale of "Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious." Less than two decades ago, the networks gave the conventions gavel-to-gavel coverage. This year, the networks are giving only four hours prime time coverage to each convention. The first televised conventions were in Philadelphia in... Read Full Story
The political career of Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential pick, has been marked by conflicts, score-settling and her own claim that she faces “enemies – powerful enemies.” But the 44-year-old first-term Alaska governor is a favorite of right-wing Christian groups and was hailed Friday by one organization as “a true Christian” who is “pro-life and pro-marriage.” She also has favored the teaching of creationism in Alaska’s schools. After the surprise announcement Friday, the... Read Full Story
