Name James Bennet Role Journalist | Parents Douglas J. Bennet Siblings Michael Bennet | |
Education Yale University, St. Albans School Nieces Anne Bennet, Halina Bennet, Caroline Bennet Similar People Bob Cohn, Michael Bennet, Douglas J Bennet Profiles | ||
James Douglas Bennet (born March 28, 1966) is an American journalist. He is currently the Editorial Page editor at The New York Times.
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Background and family
James Bennet was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Susanne Bennet (née Klejman; of Polish Jewish descent) and Douglas J. Bennet. He has a brother and sister. When his father went to work on the staff of Senator Thomas F. Eagleton, the family moved to Washington, D.C. There James attended the St. Albans School. He studied at Yale University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and was editor-in-chief of The New Journal.
Susanne Bennet taught English as a second language at Language ETC, a non-profit organization in Washington. Douglas Bennet was appointed as a political official in the Carter and Clinton administrations, served as the president of National Public Radio from 1983 to 1992 and as the president of Wesleyan University from 1995 to 2007.
Bennet's older brother Michael is the senior United States Senator from Colorado.
Journalism career
Bennet began his journalism career as an intern for The News & Observer, and later, The New Republic. From 1989 to 1991, he held an editing post at The Washington Monthly. He joined The New York Times in 1991. He rose to serve as a White House correspondent and the Jerusalem bureau chief for the paper. Upon his return from Jerusalem, he wrote a memorandum on the proper usage of the terms "terrorist" and "terrorism", which is often cited by editors of The Times.
Bennet was due to become the Times''s Beijing correspondent in late 2006. He resigned from the paper in March of that year to accept an offer to become the 14th editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Bennet was selected by the magazine's publisher, David G. Bradley, following an exhaustive selection process. Bradley conferred with 80 journalists around the United States.
Bennet as editor attracted attention in April 2008 when the magazine featured a cover story on Britney Spears, a change from The Atlantic's tradition in higher culture. The issue did poorly in newsstand sales.
During his tenure, The Atlantic dramatically increased web traffic, and in 2010, the magazine had its first profitable year in a decade.
In March 2016, he was appointed the Editorial Page editor at The New York Times. Bennet immediately added the climate-change denier Bret Stephens to the Times' editorial page, causing a raft of subscription cancellations.
On June 14, 2017, the editorial page published a piece that linked political incitement to the shooting of Steve Scalise as well as the 2011 mass shooting in Arizona that wounded then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The piece erroneously cited Sarah Palin's political action committee's map of targeted electoral districts as targeting individual Democratic Politicians. These parts of the piece were later redacted but in response, Palin filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.
Personal life
In 2001, he married Sarah Jessup in a civil ceremony.