Richard Miniter (born 1967) is an investigative journalist and author of two New York Times best selling books, Losing bin Laden and Shadow War. He is a former editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe, member of the Sunday Times (of London) Insight team of investigative reporters, and editorial page editor of the Washington Times.
He has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street JournalChristian Science Monitor, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, National Review and Reader's Digest, among others publications. In addition, his articles have appeared in newspapers throughout Europe, Asia and Australia.
The eldest child of Richard F. and Susan C. Miniter, Richard T. Miniter was born in New York City and grew up in Rosendale, New York. He graduated from Vassar College with a degree in philosophy in 1990.
After graduating from Vassar College in 1990, Miniter worked for the American Spectator, became a policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and was a senior writer at Insight on the News, a national weekly magazine published by The Washington Times.
From 1996 to 2000, Miniter reported for newspapers and magazines from Western Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. He traveled with rebels into war zones in Uganda, Sudan and Burma and along smugglers' routes in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.
Hired by Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley in 2000, Miniter was sent to Brussels as an editorial page writer at The Wall Street Journal Europe and editor of its weekly "Business Europe" column. He also wrote a weekly column, "The Visible Hand", for The Wall Street Journals OpinionJournal.com.
While at the Journal, Random House published Miniter's first book, The Myth of Market Share. The book argues that market share does not tend to generate above average profits. Executives should not pursue mergers based on size alone and regulators should not bother to stop them.
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Miniter left the Journal and joined the investigative reporting team of the Sunday Times, Britain's largest "quality" paper.
Miniter was the editorial page editor and Vice President of Opinion at The Washington Times from March until his termination in October 2009. His lawyer reported that Miniter was in salary negotiations with the Times. Miniter was terminated in October, as part of a shake-up at the Times, in which three top executives were ousted and another resigned without public explanation. Miniter has since filed a discrimination complaint against the paper with the EEOC, saying he was "coerced" into attending a Unification Church religious ceremony that culminated in a mass wedding conducted by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the newspaper's founder. In an interview, Miniter said that he "was made to feel there was no choice" but to attend the ceremony if he wanted to keep his job, and that executives "gave me examples of people whose careers at the Times had grown after they converted" to the Unification Church. Miniter, an Anglican who tried to avoid attending by saying he had to worship at his own church, said he found the religious weekend in New York last December to be "creepy".
In September 2010, the case of Miniter v. Moon et al and the related EEOC complaint was settled. Miniter refused to disclose the terms, but said "I am very, very happy the just and equitable outcome. The settlement amount was $20,000 and did not include attorney's fees. Immediately following the settlement, Miniter's former attorney filed against the settlement in an attempt to get paid for work done.
Media appearances
Miniter appears regularly on television and radio to discuss al Qaeda and global terrorism. He has appeared on every major American cable news network including CNN, CNBC, C-Span, Fox News, and MSNBC...nearly 200 times in the past three years. He has been featured on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, Kudlow and Company and Special Report with Brit Hume, among others.
He has been a featured guest on more than 1000 talk radio shows, including almost every top ten program. He has appeared on overseas television networks including ABC (Australia), Al Jazeera (Qatar), CBC (Canada), ITV and Sky News (U.K), LBC (Lebanon), and RAI (Italy), and radio programs in Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland, and Italy.
Public speaking
Miniter has given speeches across America, Europe and Asia, addressing audiences of executives, students, judges, lawyers and government officials.
Author
In early 2002, Miniter was contracted to write a book that became Losing bin Laden. He would spend the next 18 months reporting from Khartoum, Cairo, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Paris and Washington, D.C. to offer an account of the bin Laden menace during the Clinton years. It became a New York Times bestseller, peaking at no. 10 in September 2003. Losing bin Laden was cited on NBC's Meet the Press by host Tim Russert.
Miniter's next book was drawn from on the ground reporting in Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt, Sudan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines. Shadow War: The Untold Story of How America is Winning the War on Terror became his second New York Times bestseller, debuting at no.7. The New York Times > Books > Best-Seller Lists > Hardcover Nonfiction
Miniter's next book was entitled Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror.
In 2006, he edited Ayaan Hirsi Ali's bestselling book Infidel in Paris, France.
In 2007 Miniter and five other conservative authors sued Eagle Publishing, claiming that it had sold their books at a steep discount to book clubs owned by the same parent company, thus depriving them of royalties. The judge ruled that the case was invalid because the authors had contracts with Regnery, a subsidiary of Eagle, which contained binding arbitration clauses. Miniter and the other authors pursued the case in arbitration.
In a different arbitration case in 2008, Miniter was ordered to repay a $150,000 advance to Regnery Publishing when he did not deliver the second of a two book deal with the publisher. Miniter stated that Regnery had not allowed him draft a new project, after the initial plan fell apart, and reported that he intended to appeal.
Miniter is the older brother of Brendan Miniter, the former Wall Street Journal's Assistant Editor of OpinionJournal.com, and Frank Miniter, who is the executive editor of the NRA's American Hunter magazine and author of the book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Hunting. Miniter's father, Richard F. Miniter, published The Things I Want Most, a book about their family adopting a disadvantaged child, which was released in 1997.
