Mark Bowden

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For other people named Mark Bowden, see Mark Bowden (disambiguation).

Mark Bowden
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
; Hue 1968

Mark Bowden (

1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, Somalia. It was adapted as a motion picture of the same name
that received two Academy Awards.

Bowden is also known for Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001) about the efforts to take down Pablo Escobar, a Colombian drug lord, and for "Hue 1968," an account of the most significant battle of the Vietnam War.

Early life

Bowden was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1951.[1][2] He graduated from Loyola University Maryland in 1973 with a B.A in English literature.[1] While he was at college, he was inspired to embark on a career in journalism by reading Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.[3]

Career

From 1979 to 2003, Bowden was a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. In that role he researched and wrote Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo, both of which appeared as lengthy serials in the newspaper before being published as books. He published two books prior to these, Doctor Dealer and Bringing the Heat, both of which were based on reporting he originally did for the newspaper. He has since published twelve other books. Bowden wrote the 1997 Playboy profile of Donald Trump.[4]

Bowden is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, and has contributed to Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Men's Journal, Sports Illustrated, Air Mail, Business Insider, and Rolling Stone.

He has taught journalism and creative writing at Loyola University Maryland, and was Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Delaware from 2013 to 2017.

Former Florida State Seminoles football coach Bobby Bowden is his first cousin once removed.[5]

Criticism

From June 2012 through March 2013, the legal blog Trials & Tribulations (T&T), which reports on California trials and legal affairs, ran a seven-part series titled "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus".

LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus
, although this case was the centerpiece of his story.

Part VI of the series, published on T&T in October 2012, noted that Cullen Murphy, Bowden's editor at Vanity Fair, declined to comment on the record to the blog's author about the allegations related to Bowden's article. Part VII,[8] published in March 2013, said that Bowden, who was not approached about the blog's allegations prior to their posting, had since declined to respond to questions posed by the website's blogger regarding his article. He has said that he welcomes questions about it from others.

Poynter Journalism School blog posted an extended analysis of the dispute by Craig Silverman,[9] noting that Vanity Fair had posted a correction to the article, and that "the discrepancies [noted by T&T] don't amount to quote manipulation or a misrepresentation of what was said." Vanity Fair editor Cullen Murphy, in an e-mail to Poynter, said in part "the quotations used in Bowden's text correspond with relevant portions of the video. Some things are hard to make out, and there may be an occasional small variance, but a fair reading would conclude that the quotes track accurately and correctly capture the dynamic of the interrogation. There has been no distortion." Silverman closes by listing three takeaways for newsrooms, one of which is, "Whether or not you like the tone or approach taken by an outside critic, you still have a responsibility to examine claims of factual error or ethical malfeasance," and he notes further that it might have been easier for T&T and Vanity Fair to deal with the issue if they had spoken to one another directly.

Personal views

On coercive interrogation and torture

In the October 2003 issue of The Atlantic, Bowden's article "The Dark Art of Interrogation"[10] advocated an official ban on all forms of "coercive" interrogation but argued that they should still be practiced in secret and should not necessarily be punished if revealed. Written more than a year before the violations of prisoners were revealed at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers, he wrote, in part:

The Bush Administration has adopted exactly the right posture on the matter. Candor and consistency are not always public virtues. Torture is a crime against humanity, but coercion is an issue that is rightly handled with a wink, or even a touch of hypocrisy; it should be banned but also quietly practiced. Those who protest coercive methods will exaggerate their horrors, which is good: it generates a useful climate of fear. It is wise of the President to reiterate U.S. support for international agreements banning torture, and it is wise for American interrogators to employ whatever coercive methods work. It is also smart not to discuss the matter with anyone.

If interrogators step over the line from coercion to outright torture, they should be held personally responsible. But no interrogator is ever going to be prosecuted for keeping Khalid Sheikh Mohammed awake, cold, alone, and uncomfortable. Nor should he be.

In

Project ARTICHOKE.[11]
This program developed physical methods that can be used during interrogations and Ronson noted that they can be brutal or fatal.

Future of the media

Bowden believes that young people are just as drawn to "deep" journalism as other generations of people have been. He said in March 2009: "Nothing will ever replace language as the medium of thought, so nothing will replace the well-written, originally-reported story, or the well-reasoned essay."[12]

Awards

  • Winner Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award for the best book of 2001 (for Killing Pablo)
  • 1997 Winner, Overseas Press Club's Hal Boyle Award for "best reporting from abroad" (for articles published in The Philadelphia Inquirer about the Battle of Mogadishu
  • 1999, finalist, National Book Award for Black Hawk Down
  • Winner, Feature writing award from the Sunday Magazine Editors Association, 1987 (for Finder's Keeper's)
  • Winner, Science Writing Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1980
  • Finalist, best newspaper writing, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1979 (for Life in the Projects)
  • Winner, Maryland Library Association's Maryland Author Award for nonfiction writing, 2011 (for body of work)
  • Winner, Gen. Wallace Greene Award for nonfiction writing, USMC Heritage Foundation 2018 (for Hue 1968)
  • Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Award, History, 2018 (for Hue 1968)
  • Finalist, The Andrew Carnegie Medal, Nonfiction, 2018 (for Hue 1968)
  • Inductee, The Cybersecurity Canon 2018 (for Worm)

Publications

Adapted for film

References

  1. ^ a b c "Mark Bowden/Biography". The Atlantic. 2003. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
  2. ^ "The Seeker". Main Line Today. July 10, 2008. Retrieved January 22, 2024. Mark Bowden was born in St. Louis...
  3. ^ "My First Literary Crush". Slate. November 15, 2005. Archived from the original on September 8, 2010. Retrieved January 9, 2011.
  4. ^ Bowden, Mark (May 1, 1997). "The Art of the Donald". Playboy (Interview). Archived from the original on July 10, 2020. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  5. ^ Dargan, Michele (April 1, 2012). "Bowden: 1958 Colts-Giants championship an NFL game changer". Palm Beach Daily News. Palm Beach, FL. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
  6. ^ "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus". Sprocket-Trials. March 8, 2013. Archived from the original on March 13, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  7. ^ Bowden, Mark (July 2012). "A Case So Cold It Was Blue". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on December 2, 2013. Retrieved August 4, 2012.
  8. ^ "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part VII". March 8, 2013. Archived from the original on March 13, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  9. ^ Silverman, Craig (September 28, 2012). "Vanity Fair corrects Bowden story about Stephanie Lazarus case". Poynter Institute. Archived from the original on July 1, 2019. Retrieved July 1, 2019.
  10. ^ "The Dark Art of Interrogation", The Atlantic, October 2003. Archived March 18, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved September 12, 2010.
  11. ^ Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats, pp. 231–234
  12. ^ "Special Guest: Mark Bowden (Part 2)", Bellum, A Project of The Stanford Review, March 17, 2009.
  13. ^ "History TV Shows". History.com. Retrieved April 28, 2014.[permanent dead link]
  14. ^ Leane, Rob (July 7, 2017). "Michael Mann to direct a Vietnam War TV series". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on July 22, 2018. Retrieved July 21, 2018.

External links

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