Richard Miniter

Richard Miniter (born 1967) is the author of two New York Times best selling books, Losing bin Laden and Shadow War. He is also a fellow at the Hudson Institute, and a former editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.

He has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, National Review and Reader's Digest, among others. In addition, his articles have appeared in newspapers throughout Europe, Asia and Australia.

Early life

The eldest child of Richard F. and Susan C. Miniter, Richard T. Miniter was born in New York City and grew up in Rosendale, New York. He graduated from Vassar College with a degree in philosophy in 1990. His thesis was on the German classical liberal Wilhelm von Humboldt's The Limits of State Action, the work that inspired John Stuart Mill to write On Liberty.

After graduating from Vassar College in 1990, Miniter worked for the American Spectator, became a policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and was a senior writer at Insight, a national weekly magazine published by The Washington Times.

Career

From 1996 to 2000, Miniter reported for newspapers and magazines from Western Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. He traveled with rebels into war zones in Uganda, Sudan and Burma and along smugglers' routes in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.

Hired by 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. This column was cited by Forbes, Slate, and others.

While at the Journal, Random House published Miniter's first book, The Myth of Market Share. The book argues that market share does not tend to generate above average profits. Executives should not pursue mergers based on size alone and regulators should not bother to stop them. The Myth of Market Share has been translated into Chinese, Hebrew, German, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish. The Washington Post said it was a "must read for business executives."

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Miniter left the Journal to join the investigative reporting team of the Sunday Times, Britain's largest quality paper. Miniter co-wrote a four part series, "The Road to Ground Zero". The series won first prize by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Media appearances

Miniter appears regularly on television and radio to discuss al Qaeda and global terrorism. He has appeared on every major American cable news network including CNN, CNBC, C-Span, Fox News, and MSNBC—nearly 200 times in the past three years. He has been featured on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, Kudlow and Company and Special Report with Brit Hume, among others.

He has been a featured guest on more 1000 talk radio shows, including almost every top ten program. He has often appeared on overseas television networks including ABC (Australia), Al Jazeera (Qatar), CBC (Canada), ITV and Sky News (U.K), LBC (Lebanon), and RAI (Italy), and radio programs in Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland, and Italy.

Public speaking

Miniter has given speeches across America, Europe and Asia, addressing audiences of executives, students, judges, lawyers and government officials. He has delivered speeches on terrorism at the Royal Military College in Brussels, at the Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington, at the World Journalism Institute in New York, a business summit in Singapore, the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club, and a money-laundering and counterterrorism conference hosted by Sprylogics International.

Author

In early 2002, Miniter was contracted to write a book that became Losing bin Laden. He would spend the next 18 months reporting from Khartoum, Cairo, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Paris and Washington to offer an account of the bin Laden menace during the Clinton years. It became a New York Times bestseller, peaking at no. 10 in September 2003. Losing bin Laden was cited on NBC's Meet the Press by host Tim Russert. The book was also praised in columns by George F. Will, Steve Forbes and Robert Novak. His book inspired the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11" and the controversial Chris Wallace question on Fox News Sunday to President Bill Clinton about his track record on losing bin Laden. His reporting in Losing bin Laden and his previous investigative reporting in the award-winning Sunday Times (of London) investigative unit were key documents for putting together the 9-11 Commission Report.

Miniter's next book was drawn from on the ground reporting in Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt, Sudan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines. Shadow War: The Untold Story of How America is Winning the War on Terror became his second New York Times bestseller, debuting at no.7.

Miniter's latest book is entitled Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror. In 2006, he edited Ayaan Hirsi Ali's bestselling book Infidel in Paris, France. He is currently writing a book for Simon & Schuster entitled "Some Gave All."

Personal

Miniter is the older brother of Brendan Miniter, the Wall Street Journal's Assistant Editor, OpinionJournal.com and Frank Miniter is the executive editor of the NRA's American Hunter magazine and author of the book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Hunting". Miniter's father, Richard F. Miniter published in 2000 a book about their family adopting a disadvantaged child.

External links

• "Richard Miniter's official website"
• "Hudson Institute Fellow bio"
• "Miniter's Blog on Pajamas Media"