David Cay Johnston
David Cay Johnston | |
---|---|
Born | San Francisco, California, U.S. | December 24, 1948
Education | San Francisco State University Michigan State University University of Chicago |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, author |
Known for | investigative reporting, reporting on tax issues |
Notable work | Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else |
Spouse | Jennifer Leonard |
Awards | Pulitzer Prize |
Website | davidcayjohnston |
David Cay Boyle Johnston (born December 24, 1948)
From July 2011 until September 2012 he was a columnist for
Reporting
Johnston covered "student radicals, black politics and development" at the
As a reporter Johnston investigated
From February 1995 to April 2008, he was the tax reporter with The New York Times. For the next three years, until joining Reuters, he wrote "Johnston's Take", a column on tax policy for the nonprofit journal Tax Notes and its sister website tax.com, published by Tax Analysts.[8] In 2009 he briefly wrote a column titled "By the Numbers" for The Nation.[9]
Johnston received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms. "Johnston described how corporations were paying less in taxes, even as individuals were paying more, with even well-known companies like Colgate-Palmolive, Compaq Computer, and United Parcel Service (UPS) engaging in "what the courts called shams." A court found that Merrill Lynch saved AlliedSignal (now Honeywell) $180 million in "sham" money transfers among foreign companies. However, the IRS is, since 1999, more likely to audit the poor than the rich, Johnston reported.[10]
In 2001 Johnston investigated the claim that
He was a Pulitzer finalist in 2003 "for his stories that displayed exquisite command of complicated U.S. tax laws and of how corporations and individuals twist them to their advantage." He was also a finalist in 2000 "for his lucid coverage of problems resulting from the reorganization of the Internal Revenue Service."
Like columnist Steven Pearlstein, Johnston has won praise for his writing even though he has no degree in economics. Johnston studied economics at the University of Chicago graduate school and six other colleges, earning the equivalent of six years of college credits but no awarded degree, because he took upper level and graduate level courses almost exclusively, and did not remain at any one school long enough.[12]
Johnston has been critical of news coverage of the
In 2011, in his debut article for Reuters, Johnson mistook a positive number for a negative one in News Corp's annual report, and as a result, his article said that News Corp had received a large tax refund, when in reality, it had paid taxes. This error led to a retraction of the article.[17]
On March 14, 2017, Johnston released a portion of Donald Trump's 2005 Form 1040 tax return which, he states, he received anonymously in the mail.[18]
DCReport
In 2016, David Cay Johnston co-founded DCReport with David Crook, a veteran journalist who was founder and editor of The Wall Street Journal Sunday. DCReport is an online nonprofit news service that covers the US President and Congress. Johnston is Editor-in-Chief and David Crook is Managing Editor.[19][20]
From 2019 to 2021, DCReport partnered with Raw Story providing original investigative reporting for Raw Story's subscribers on financial regulation, taxes, energy, the environment, worker safety and corruption.[21][22]
In December 2022, Johnston announced he would be stepping down as editor-in-chief, though continuing as an advisor and occasional contributor, and the Next Echo Foundation would be taking charge.[23]
Works
Johnston is the author of best-selling books on tax and economic policy. Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, is about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows his earlier book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller[24] on the U.S. tax system that won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award.
Johnston's first book, the 1992 Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business is an account of how the
In 2014 Johnston released Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality. Cay Johnston shows most Americans, in inflation-adjusted terms, are now back to the average income of 1966. Post-recession (from 2009 to 2011) the top one percent of households took in 121 percent of the income gains while the bottom 99 percent saw their incomes fall.
In 2016, Johnston released The Making of Donald Trump, a journalistic account of the rise of businessperson-turned-presidential candidate Donald Trump. At the time he wrote the book, Johnston had known Trump for 28 years. The book was on the New York Times bestseller list.[25]
Published in 2018 is It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America, an investigative piece that details actions taken by Trump and his appointees at the departmental level, and how these actions affect Americans' rights and civil protections.[26]
- Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business (1992) ISBN 978-0-385-41920-8
- Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else (2003) ISBN 1-59184-019-8
- Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill (2007) ISBN 978-1-59184-191-3
- The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind (2012) ISBN 978-1-591-84358-0
- Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality (2014) ISBN 9781620970850, 1620970856
- ISBN 978-1612196329
- It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America (2018) ISBN 9781501174162
- The Enforcers : How little-known trade reporters exposed the Keating Five and advanced business journalism (2019) ISBN 9780252042942
- Social security works for everyone! : protecting and expanding the insurance Americans love and count on (2021) ISBN 9781620976227, 1620976226
- The Big Cheat : How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family (2022) ISBN 9781982187903, 1982187905
Personal life
Johnston was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Gretchen E. and Leslie Jules Johnston, a chef.[27] Johnston is married to Jennifer Leonard.[28] They live in Brighton, New York, a suburb of Rochester. They have eight children and five grandchildren.
References
- California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California.
- ^ "IRE - Board of Directors". Investigative Reporters and Editors. Archived from the original on November 1, 2012. Retrieved November 9, 2012.
- ^ "Profile: David Cay Johnston", Syracuse University College of Law. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
- ^ "Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter joins SU faculty as Distinguished Visiting Lecturer". SU News. October 30, 2008. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
- ^ a b "David Cay Johnston of The New York Times". www.pulitzer.org.
- ^ a b "David Cay Johnston Biography – David Cay Johnston". davidcayjohnston.com.
- ^ Johnston, David (13 November 1986). "Long Ordeal of a Murder Suspect: Tony Cooks of Compton, a Victim of Mistaken Identity, Says He Has Every Reason to Feel Bitter About Enduring Five Grueling Trials...but Doesn't". Los Angeles Times.
Cooks was acquitted, partly on the basis of new information uncovered in Johnston's investigation.
- ^ "Tax Analysts—David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reporter, Begins Regular Column for Tax Analysts". taxanalysts.com. Retrieved 1 October 2015.
- ^ "By the Numbers". Archived from the original on 2009-07-22.
- ^ The 2001 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Beat Reporting Works.
- ^ Johnston, David Cay (8 April 2001). "Talk of Lost Farms Reflects Muddle of Estate Tax Debate". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
- ^ "Perfectly Legal author bio". Archived from the original on 2004-04-02.
- ^ "Poynter forum post from David Cay Johnston: Journalists, start your skepticism". Archived from the original on 2009-04-19.
- ^ Glenn Greenwald Salon Radio interview of David Cay Johnston, Salon, October 1, 2008
- ^ "Forty-Two: David Cay Johnston on the Bailout". October 1, 2008. Archived from the original on January 7, 2009.
- ^ "Rescue Mission". onthemedia. Archived from the original on 4 June 2011. Retrieved 1 October 2015.
- ^ "How I misread News Corp's taxes". Reuters. Retrieved 2018-05-31.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ "You Can Help David Cay Johnston Help Us". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2017-03-04.
- ^ DCReport About, DCReport Masthead, Retrieved September 27, 2022
- ^ "Behind Raw Story's Progressive Mission (Vodcast)". Editor & Publisher. October 3, 2021. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
- ^ Raw Story partners with Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston in push for investigative journalism May 22, 2019, Raw Story
- ^ A New Chapter for DCReport Begins, December 29, 2022, DCReport]
- Canandaigua, New York: Messenger-Post (published January 21, 2008), pp. 1–2
- ^ "Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - The New York Times". The New York Times. 20 August 2016. Archived from the original on 20 August 2016.
- ^ Konrad, Kelly (2018-01-20). "'It's Even Worse Than You Think' is the book you need to read". Chicago Now. Archived from the original on 2018-02-08. Retrieved 2018-02-07.
- ^ "Johnston, David 1948–". Archived from the original on 24 February 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2015.
- ^ "Jennifer Leonard, President & CEO". Rochester Area Community Foundation. Archived from the original on 6 July 2018. Retrieved 6 July 2018.