James B. Stewart

James Bennett Stewart (born ) is an American lawyer, journalist, and author.

Early life and education Stewart was born in Quincy, Illinois. He graduated from DePauw University and Harvard Law School.

Career He is a member of the Bar of New York, the Bloomberg Professor of Business and Economic Journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Editor-at-Large of SmartMoney magazine, and author of Tangled Webs: How False Statements are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff (2011). He is a former associate at New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, which he left in 1979 to become executive editor of The American Lawyer magazine. He later joined The Wall Street Journal, where earned the 1987 Gerald Loeb Award for Deadline and/or Beat Writing. He shared the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism and the Gerald Loeb Award for Large Newspapers for his articles about the 1987 dramatic upheaval in the stock market and insider trading.Stewart became page one editor of The Wall Street Journal in 1988 and remained at the paper until 1992, when he left to help found SmartMoney. In 2007, he was ranked 21st on Out magazine's 50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America. He is currently a contributor to The New Yorker and a columnist for The New York Times, which he joined in 2011.

Notable stories

Jeffrey Epstein On August 12, 2019, Stewart reported on a conversation he had with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein reportedly told Stewart that he was advising Elon Musk and Tesla. Stewart was also told by Epstein that he had dirt on powerful people including personal details about their sexual activities and drug use.

On July 31, 2019, Stewart along with Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg reported about Epstein's interest in Eugenics and how he wished to seed the human race by using his own DNA. He also reportedly wanted his head and penis frozen. That same year Stewart and Emily Flitter partnered on a piece which provided more detail as to Epstein's relationship with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, which had started after Epstein had become a registered sex offender.

Michael Milken In the 1980s, Stewart reported heavily on Wall Street and specifically the illicit activities of junk bond king Michael Milken. According to Stewart he attempted to meet Milken at a conference at The Beverly Hilton but shortly after meeting him he was removed from the hotel by security. His reporting on Milken culminated in a book called Den of Thieves (1991), which recounted the criminal conduct of Wall Street arbitrager Ivan Boesky and Milken.