Richard Miniter (born 1967) is an investigative journalist and author whose articles have appeared in Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, The New Republic, National Review, PJ Media, and Reader’s Digest. A former editorial writer and columnist for The Wall Street Journal in Europe, as well as a member of the investigative reporting team of the Sunday Times of London, he is currently the National Security columnist for Forbes. He also authored three New York Times best-selling books, Losing bin Laden, Shadow War, Leading From Behind, and most recently Eyes On Target. In April 2014, Miniter was included by CSPAN's Brian Lamb in his book Sundays At Eight, as one of Lamb's top 40 book author interviews of the past 25 years for Miniter's investigative work on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Family and education
Miniter was born in New York City and grew up in Rosendale, New York. Among his siblings are several writers and journalists, including Frank Miniter, executive editor of American Hunter magazine, and Brendan Miniter, formerly of The Wall Street Journal, who is the editor of the book The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs.
He studied philosophy at Vassar College, graduating in 1990. He was an editor of the Vassar Spectator, one of the school's student periodicals, where he worked with Mark Thiessen and Jonathan Karl.
Policy and early media work
In 1989, he was a summer fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies. He later worked as an environmental policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. From 1992 to 1994, Miniter was an associate producer of the PBS talk show TechnoPolitics. In 1996, he produced a radio series profiling female executives and entrepreneurs, Enterprising Women, that was distributed to more than a hundred radio stations in the United States. He was also a fellow and senior editor of the Hudson Institute.
Career in journalism
Miniter published in a number of newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Sunday Times (London), South China Morning Post, and Australian Financial Review. He travelled to South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya to write about modern-day slavery for The Atlantic Monthly in "The False Promise of Slave Redemption".
Dow Jones Newswires
Miniter worked for the Dow Jones Newswires during the summers of 1987 and 1988.
Wall Street Journal Europe
Hired by The Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley in 2000, Miniter was sent to Brussels as an editorial page writer at The Wall Street Journal Europe and editor of its weekly "Business Europe" column. He also wrote a weekly column, "The Visible Hand", for The Wall Street Journal'''s OpinionJournal.com.
Post-Journal
Miniter left the Journal after less than two years to take a position with the Centre for the New Europe in Brussels, Belgium. He left there after a short stint as a senior fellow.
The Washington Times
Miniter was the editorial page editor and Vice President of Opinion at The Washington Times from March until October 2009. Miniter later sued for breach of contract and other claims.
In September 2010, the case of Miniter v. Moon et al. and the related EEOC complaint was settled. Miniter refused to disclose the terms, but said "I am very, very happy with the equitable and just result."
Forbes and investigative journalist
Miniter wrote the "National Security" column for Forbes.com. Miniter's June 2014 Forbes exposé of President Joseph Kabila, the leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo, reportedly provoked Kabila's younger brother, Zoe, to beat unconscious Congo parliament speaker Évariste Boshab. The Kabila family accused Boshab of having been an anonymous source for Miniter's article, which estimated President Kabila had extracted and secreted away as much as $15 billion from the impoverished Congo.
National security columnist at Forbes.com
Miniter wrote a regular national security column for Forbes.com.Will, George. "Sustaining the unsustainable." July 21, 2011 and wrote about the growing al Qaeda presence in Africa—the same presence that has been implicated in the recent attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
American Media Institute
In 2012, Richard Miniter founded the American Media Institute, a 501(3)(c) non-profit organization that provides investigative news stories to leading newspapers, magazines, radio and television news outlets around the world.