amanda bennett

Author, reporter, editor

United States

Amanda Bennett is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, investigative journalist and editor. Through 2013, she was Executive Editor, Bloomberg News, where she created and ran a global team of investigative reporters and editors. She was also a co-founder of Bloomberg News’ Women’s project. She was editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer from June, 2003, to November, 2006, and prior to that was editor of the Herald-Leader in Lexington, Kentucky. She also served for three years as managing editor/projects for The Oregonian in Portland. Bennett served as a Wall Street Journal reporter for more than 20 years. A graduate of Harvard College, she held numerous posts at the Journal, including auto industry reporter in Detroit in the late 70s and early 80s, Pentagon and State Department reporter, Beijing correspondent, management editor/reporter, national economics correspondent and, finally, chief of the Atlanta bureau until 1998, when she moved to The Oregonian.

She served as co-Chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2010. Bennett shared the Prize for national reporting with her Journal colleagues, and in 2001 led a team from The Oregonian to a Pulitzer for public service. She is on the board of the Loeb Awards and of the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Projects by the Bloomberg Projects and Investigations team won numerous awards, including Loeb, Polk, Barlett & Steele, Headliners, Society of American Business Editors and Writers and Overseas Press Club Awards.

She is the author of six books including “In Memoriam” (1998), co-authored with Terence B. Foley; “The Man Who Stayed Behind,” co-authored with Sidney Rittenberg (1993), “Death of the Organization Man” (1991) and “The Quiet Room,” co-authored with Lori Schiller. "The Cost of Hope," her memoir of the battle she and Foley, her late husband, fought against his kidney cancer, was published in June, 2012 by Random House.

She is a member of The Pennsylvania Women’s Forum. She was on the board of the American Society of News Editors; the board of advisers of the Temple University Press; the board of directors of Axis Philly, a nonprofit local news site; and of the Rosenbach Museum, a Philadelphia museum of rare books. She is a co-founder, along with her husband, Donald Graham, of TheDream.US, a scholarship fund for the children of undocumented workers.

Portfolio
Pulitzer
12/10/2000
The Pulitzer Prizes | PART ONE: power of the I.N.S. shatters American dream

Murder suspects have more rights than many people who encounter the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service - and not just the 1.6 million the agency catches trying to sneak across the Mexican border each year. While its role as protector of the nation's borders shapes the INS' most visible and enduring image, its heavy hand falls on people most Americans will never see.

Pulitzer
The Pulitzer Prizes | PART THREE: Ex-lawmaker watches reforms exceed intent

In 1996, America clamped down on immigrants. Jim Bunn watched it happen. Now, he sees the effects in person. Bunn rode the Republican wave into Congress in 1994, elected from Oregon's 5th congressional district. "We were saying, 'Let's do something; let's get tough on crime, on welfare and on illegal immigrants,'" he says.

Pulitzer
The Pulitzer Prizes |PART SIX: INS one of the most corrupt federal law-enforcement agencies

In the final two years of an otherwise spotless career, Sally Yates ripped off the Immigration and Naturalization Service for $39,040. Yates, who worked in the INS Portland District office, found the agency an easy mark. So have hundreds of other crooked INS employees around the country, making it one of the federal government's most corrupt law-enforcement agencies, according to records and interviews.

Bloomberg.com
06/29/2012
Xi Jinping Millionaire Relations Reveal Fortunes of Elite

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Xi Jinping, the man in line to be China's next president, warned officials on a 2004 anti-graft conference call: "Rein in your spouses, children, relatives, friends and staff, and vow not to use power for personal gain."

Bloomberg
Wired for Repression News - Bloomberg

Bloomberg's series "Wired for Repression" reveals how Western companies provide surveillance systems to authoritarian countries that claim some of the world's worst human rights records including Iran, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia. The newest artillery for repressive regimes, the gear allows authorities to intercept their citizens' e-mails and text messages, monitor Internet activity and locate political targets through cell phone technology.

Bloomberg
12/15/2011
Victoria's Secret Revealed in Child Picking Burkina Faso Cotton

Clarisse Kambire's nightmare rarely changes. It's daytime. In a field of cotton plants that burst with purple and white flowers, a man in rags towers over her, a stick raised above his head. Then a voice booms, jerking Clarisse from her slumber and making her heart leap. "Get up!"

Bloomberg
12/09/2008
World Bank's 'Wrong Advice' Left Silos Empty in Poor Countries

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Inside and out, the rusted towers of El Salvador's biggest grain silo show how the World Bank helped push developing countries into the global food crisis. Inside, the silo, which once held thousands of tons of beans and cereals, is now empty.

BLOOMBERG NEWS
2008
WALL STREET'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN

BLOOMBERG NEWS SUES THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD TO DISCLOSE RECIPIENTS OF EMERGENCY POST 2007 DISCOUNT WINDOW FUNDING

Bloomberg
12/15/2011
Clarisse Kambire, Victoria's Secret Child-Labor Cotton Picker

Forced and child labor aren't new to African farms. The cotton 13 year-old Clarisse Kambire picks is supposed to be different, but is the product of both. It's certified as organic and "fair trade," free of such practices. Victoria's Secret purchased all of this crop from last season to weave into undergarments.

BOOKS

Amazon
The Man Who Stayed Behind

The Man Who Stayed Behind [Sidney Rittenberg, Amanda Bennett] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Man Who Stayed Behind is the remarkable account of Sidney Rittenberg, an American who was sent to China by the U.S. military in the 1940s.

Amazon
In Memoriam: A Practical Guide to Planning a Memorial Service

In Memoriam: A Practical Guide to Planning a Memorial Service [Amanda Bennett, Terence Foley] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A unique guide leads friends and family members through each step of planning a funeral or memorial service

JOURNALISM

Niemanreports
The Oregonian Investigates Mistreatment of Foreigners

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service sealed its distinction as a clueless bureaucracy last March when its contractor mailed visa confirmations for two dead September 11 hijackers. President Bush called the action an inexcusable blunder. Outrage over the incident contributed to an overwhelming House vote to abolish the INS and split its functions between two bureaus.

INVESTIGATIVE PROJECTS

COST OF HOPE

TED
We need a heroic narrative for death

Amanda Bennett and her husband were passionate and full of life all throughout their lives together -- and up until the final days, too. Bennett gives a sweet yet powerful talk on why, for the loved ones of the dying, having hope for a happy ending shouldn't warrant a diagnosis of "denial."

Businessweek
03/04/2010
Lessons of a $618,616 Death

Two years after her husband's death, Amanda Bennett's cover story examines the costs of keeping one man alive It was sometime after midnight on Dec. 8, 2007, when Dr. Eric Goren told me my husband might not live till morning. The kidney cancer that had metastasized almost six years earlier was growing in his lungs.

OP EDS

Washington Post
04/19/2015
When bias against women gets a pass

Amanda Bennett is a contributing columnist for The Post. Not very long ago I met a young man at a business function. "Hello, I'm Amanda," I said, sticking out my hand in greeting. He kept his arms glued to his side. "I don't touch women," he said.

Poynter
Push for Parity: What do women in leadership need next? Courage. | Poynter.

This essay is the fifth in our Push For Parity essay series, featuring stories about women in leadership in journalism. For more on our series and details about how you can contribute, see Kelly McBride's essay introducing the project. Poynter and ONA have also announced a tuition-free women's leadership academy.

Washingtonpost
Women should - and do - have the power to speak up

Amanda Bennett is a freelance editor and writer. So there I was at one of those Washington dinners where the powerful are feted. It was one of the old-fashioned events where alternate-sex seating left me parked between two (maybe) famous and (aspirationally, at least) important men.

Washingtonpost
Paying for bad behavior

Both men and women talk a lot - too much - these days about why women can't have it all. We don't talk enough about why some men think they can. The Post reported last month on military commanders' misconduct after reviewing recent inspector general investigations it received in response to Freedom of Information Act requests to the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.

Washingtonpost
Misogyny gone viral

So let us draw a merciful curtain before this child Evan Spiegel (and make no mistake about it - all his potential zillions from Snapchat don't obscure the fact that even at 23, he's not very far removed from the child he was then).

Washingtonpost
12/19/2014
Rolling Stone editor Will Dana's failures have cost everyone involved

Amanda Bennett, the former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Lexington Herald-Leader, is a freelance editor and writer. So, dear Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana , a month has passed since you published the dramatic, and now questioned, tale of gang rape at a fraternity at the University of Virginia.

Washingtonpost
What's love got to do with it?

Amanda Bennett is an editor and writer. No one is as passionate about a cause as someone touched personally by it. Sympathy for strangers with dread diseases is nothing like the angst you feel when a member of your family is sickened.

Washington Post
03/13/2015
Taking a hammer to the silicon ceiling

Amanda Bennett is a freelance editor and writer. So this week, we saw a woman who reportedly earned a base salary of more than $200,000, a bonus of maybe half that again plus a share of her deals' profits sue her former firm because she wasn't made partner - a promotion that would have earned her way more.

Dallasnews
Dreamers deserve the chance to pursue education

It just takes one look at the two groups squaring off, shouting at each other across Elm Street this month, to see how a flood of children at our borders has become a Rorschach test of the passions that divide us over immigration.

Washington Post
07/11/2015
Today's work pressures harm both men and women

Amanda Bennett is a contributing columnist for The Post. When I saw a female pilot walking through the San Francisco airport, my first thought was: Yay! I'll bet she wanted to be a pilot ever since she was a kid. I'm glad she gets to do it. The second thought?

MISCELLANEOUS

Thecrimson
02/16/1974
Bombs and Le Bon Dieu

W HEN THE SKY is very clear over Ambleteuse, you can see Dover's cliffs over the Channel. But when the fog rolls in off the ocean every night, there is one hour of limbo when no one can see anything. The fog comes in with the high tide, which is often with the dusk.

BOOK REVIEWS

Washingtonpost
03/26/2014
What the health-care law will - and will not - do

His review of how our health-care system got this way is a depressing reminder of forces that have little to do with health care and nothing to do with health. How did hospitals become so dominant? How did the Depression lead to the spread of health insurance?