James Fowler Ridgeway (November 1, 1936February 13, 2021) was an American investigative journalist. In a career spanning six decades, he covered many topics including automobile industry safety, American universities, far-right movements including the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazism, and campaigns against solitary confinement. He was the Washington correspondent for The Village Voice for over 30 years between the mid-1970s to mid-2000s, and had also worked for The New Republic, and Mother Jones. He had also contributed to magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist among others.

Early life

Ridgeway was born on November 1, 1936, in Auburn, New York, to Florence (née Fowler) and George Ridgeway. His father was a professor and historian at Wells College, in Aurora, New York. His father had served as a British affairs specialist for the State Department during World War II.

Career

Ridgeway started his career with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered banking and the economy. He later went to Europe, where he wrote for The Economist, The Guardian, and The Observer, as a freelancer. He returned to the United States in 1962, and moved to Washington, D.C., where he covered economics and industry for The New Republic for eight years. Ridgeway's revelations of the company's snooping and dirty tricks prompted a Senate subcommittee led by Senator Abraham Ribicoff to summon James Roche, president of GM, to explain his company's harassment — and apologize. The incident catapulted auto safety into the public spotlight and helped send Nader's book, Unsafe at Any Speed (1965), to the top of the bestseller lists.

He served as Washington correspondent for The Village Voice where he worked for 30 years, from the mid-1970s until 2006. He covered politics and foreign affairs including Europe, the Middle East, and the Balkans. However, in 2012, he would write about his time at the Voice, talking about the independence while he was at the newspaper, "Nobody censored what we wrote. Nobody messed with how things were written, or dreamed of questioning a political opinion."

In 2008, he covered the Democratic primary elections, filmed interviewing Mike Gravel in New Hampshire, in which Gravel is interviewed on the phone by Neal Conan for NPR's, Talk of the Nation.

In 2009, together with longtime editor and collaborator Jean Casella, Ridgeway founded Solitary Watch, a nonprofit watchdog project that exposes the widespread use of solitary confinement and other abusive conditions in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention facilities. Solitary Watch was the first media project devoted to the topic, and helped bring the largely hidden practice to the attention of the public and larger media outlets. In 2016, the New Yorkers Jennifer Gonnerman wrote a piece titled "James Ridgeway's Solitary Reporting", about his work at Solitary Watch and the extensive correspondence he maintained with people held in solitary confinement. He was also extensively interviewed for An Unreasonable Man, a 2007 documentary about Ralph Nader.

In a career spanning six decades, he covered many topics including automobile safety, far-right activities including the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazism, and campaigns against solitary confinement. The Economist, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and other magazines and newspapers.

Personal life

Ridgeway married Patricia Carol Dodge, an editor with The New Republic, in 1966. The couple went on to have a son. Ridgeway co-directed the companion film Blood in the Face, as well as Feed, a documentary on the 1992 presidential campaign.

A revised edition of his book Blood in the Face covering the events from 2010s is planned to launch in mid-2021.

References

  • "Sweet Subpoena: Nine Investigations That Could Spice Up the Next Congress", Mother Jones, September/October 2006.
  • Ridgewayng.com: Original reporting. News video collaborations between Ridgeway and Alicia Ng. Retrieved April 13, 2006.
  • eText of Politics of Ecology
  • 'VV' Staff Protests Ridgeway's Firing; Management Doesn't Care
  • Village Voice Shakeup: Top Investigative Journalist Fired, Prize-Winning Writers Resign Following Merger with New Times Media . Download in MP3. Watch in 128K . Read Transcript . Host Amy Goodman interviews current and former staff James Ridgeway, Nat Hentoff, Tom Robbins, Sydney Schanberg and two reporters Mark Jacobson and Tim Redmond.
  • James Ridgeway at The Guardian