James Steele

Who is James Steele?

James B. Steele is an American investigative journalist and author. With longtime collaborator Donald L. Barlett he has won two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Magazine Awards and five George Polk Awards during their thirty five years of service at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Time, and Vanity Fair. The duo are frequently referred to as Barlett and Steele.

Steele was born in Hutchinson, Kansas and was raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from the University of Missouri–Kansas City and began his career at the Kansas City Times, where he covered politics, labor and urban affairs. In 1970 he joined the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he would begin his collaboration with Barlett.

In a 1972 collaboration for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Steele and Barlett pioneered the use of computers for the analysis of data on violent crimes. Twenty years later, they co-authored the series America: What Went Wrong? for The Inquirer, which was named as one of the 100 best pieces of journalism of the 20th century by the New York University School of Journalism. Rewritten into book form, America: What Went Wrong? became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. It is one of seven books Steele and Barlett have published. In 1989, he and Barlett won the Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on the Tax Reform Act of 1986.