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News Junkie Paperback – May 9, 2006

by Jason Leopold (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 14 ratings
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In News Junkie, the cutthroat worlds of journalism, politics, and high finance are laid bare by Jason Leopold, whose addictive tendencies led him from a life of drug abuse and petty crime to become an award-winning investigative journalist who exposed some of the biggest corporate and political scandals in recent American history.

Leopold broke key stories about the California energy crisis and Enron Corporation's infamous phony trading floor as a reporter for the Dow Jones Newswires. While he exposed high-rolling hucksters and double-dealing politicians, Leopold hid the secrets of his own felonious past, terrified that he would be discovered.

When the news junkie closed in on his biggest story—one that implicated a Bush administration member—he found himself pilloried by angry colleagues and the president’s press secretary, all attempting to destroy his career.

Jason Leopold introduces us to an unforgettable array of characters, from weepy editors and love-starved politicos to steroid-pumped mobsters who intimidate the author into selling drugs and stolen goods.

In the end, News Junkie shows how a man once fueled by raging fear and self-hatred transforms his life, regenerated by love, sobriety and a new, harmonious career with the independent media.

Jason Leopold is a former Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. He has worked for the Los Angeles Times and has been a frequent guest on CNBC; his articles have appeared in The Nation, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. Leopold is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, and currently writes for CounterPunch, Political Affairs, and Z Magazine.

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  1. Print length
    280 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Process
  4. Publication date
    May 9, 2006
  5. Dimensions
    5.4 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0976082241
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0976082248
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Leopold, one of the reporters who broke the Enron story, is now breaking his own story: how he got addicted to cocaine, committed grand theft, cleaned himself up and found happiness as a "news junkie." While residential rehab programs and an incredibly committed wife were key to his turnaround, what saved his life was his discovery of the adrenaline high of news scooping. After a few small successes, Leopold got lucky when he began investigating insider trading by aides to California's Gov. Grey Davis and stumbled onto the extraordinary scandal of Enron's manipulation of utility deregulation in California. By the time Leopold was pressured into resigning from Dow Jones in 2002, he was one of the few reporters who'd actually interviewed Enron president Jeff Skilling. He then rushed to publish a flawed exposé of the secretary of the army's Enron connections, seriously damaging his journalistic credibility. Disillusioned by the institutional biases of mainstream media, Leopold finally decided to freelance with independent, Internet-based news services. While there's a lot of lying admitted to in this scrappy memoir, from Leopold's hiding of his criminal past to his playing of sources to get his scoops, it's (probably) not an untruthful memoir—indeed, it might become required reading for aspiring journalists. (May 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Author

Advance Praise for NEWS JUNKIE:

"I love this book. When other U.S. reporters were licking Ken Lay's loafers, Leopold went for Enron's thieving throat. Leopold is a journalist who insists on real investigative reporting–inside documents, inside sources, hard knife-in-the-gut evidence–detective-style reporting that is just about illegal in the U.S.A. Bravo and my personal Pulitzer to Jason Leopold. Every journalist in America should read this, then quit or riot."

— Greg Palast, author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

"Investigative superstar Jason Leopold spares no one, least of all himself, in this devastatingly accurate first-hand exposé. News Junkie provides the best account so far of how, and why, current American journalism has become so pharisaical, spineless, and detached from the truth."

— T.D. Allman, journalist and author of Rogue State, Unmanifest Destiny, and Finding Florida

"Having told the truth for years as a first-rate reporter, Jason Leopold now comes completely clean about himself and also sheds light on his imperiled profession. A riveting account of just how hard the truth can be."

— Mark Crispin Miller, author of Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order

"Frighteningly honest. What Anthony Bourdain did to the world of cooking in Kitchen Confidential, Leopold will do to the world of journalism. It's Sid & Nancy meets All the President's Men."

— Rob Cohen, coauthor of Etiquette for Outlaws

"This memoir is one of the most brutally honest books I've ever read. You will grow to believe, and cheer on, this flawed hero as he gains a liberating knowledge of himself."

— Joe Loya, author of The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Process
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 9, 2006
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ First Edition
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0976082241
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0976082248
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 14 ratings

About the author

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Jason Leopold

Jason Leopold

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Jason Leopold is a senior investigative reporter on the Bloomberg News investigations team. Previously, he was a senior investigative reporter at BuzzFeed News and senior investigative reporter for VICE News.

Leopold is a recipient of the 2023 Gerald Loeb award for investigative reporting, a 2022 George Polk award for health reporting and he has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. He was honored as a finalist in 2021 as one of the lead reporters on the massive reporting project known as the FinCEN Files, an investigation by BuzzFeed News, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 108 media partners around the world, based on an unprecedented cache of US Treasury Department documents Leopold obtained, that revealed how banks knowingly profit from corruption and how authorities around the world allow the dark economy to flourish. Leopold was also honored as a Pulitzer finalist in 2018 as part of the team that investigated a series of suspicious deaths in the UK & US that linked back to the Kremlin. In 2015, Leopold was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy award for producing The Architect for VICE News, the first ever interview with retired Air Force psychologist James Mitchell, the man credited with developing the CIA's torture program whose story Leopold had pursued for a decade.

Leopold's Freedom of Information Act work has been profiled by dozens of radio, television, and print outlets, including a 2015 front-page story in the New York Times. He has testified before a congressional oversight committee about the shortcomings of FOIA and steps the government needed to take to improve the law.

In 2020, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data research organization out of Syracuse University, identified Leopold as "the most active individual FOIA litigator in the United States today." Politico has also referred to Leopold as “perhaps the most prolific Freedom of Information requester.” In 2016, Leopold was awarded the FOI award from Investigative Reporters & Editors and was inducted into the National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame by the Freedom Forum Institute and the Newseum.

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Top reviews from the United States

  • J. Tate
    5.0 out of 5 stars Not normally my type of book . . .
    Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2006
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    I usually don't like this type of book, but after thumbing through the first few pages, I decided to get it. I like the style of writing; like the author is talking directly to me. I could feel the love he has for his wife, which was heartwarming, and yet his struggles were so sad. I'm not explaining myself well, but as I was reading the reviews, I became a bit irate with the reviewer below and thought I'd chime in (being that I *have* reviewed things on Amazon before). I just thought it was an all around good book and will be suggesting it to my friends.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Honorable Mensch
    2.0 out of 5 stars Strangely lacking in growth or insight
    Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2015
    Jumping from job to job, mistake to mistake, some of which he views as successes, the author changes when he must but rarely achieves much understanding or humility about what he has done wrong. Yes, he acknowledges that he's a jerk for about two seconds, and then describes the next job offer. As mea culpas go, this is pretty weak. To the end, it is a memoir of clueless narcissism and self-congratulation.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • C. Clegg
    4.0 out of 5 stars A solid page turner from beginning to end.
    Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2006
    Format: Paperback
    A crazy, fascinating, sometimes jaw-dropping account of what happened to an obsessive journalist who went from being addicted to cocaine to being addicted to breaking a story, and how, thanks to his wife and lots of therapy, he transformed his life in the end. I can't believe that the author's wife stuck with him so long after what she went through after so many manic-depressive obsessive-compulsive drug paranoid episodes. I loved the behind-the-scenes accounts of what REALLY goes on between journalists and politicians and corporate spokesmen. This book might give Fox News a field day to go after the liberal press. Only thing I didn't buy was that he seemed to blame the major newspaper politics for his woes, when it seemed to me that nearly everything that happened to him was brought upon himself, and he would have transformed himself even more to admit it. All in all- a good read.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Cass
    5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely must read.
    Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2021
    When one of the nation's most famous and impactful journalists writes a ruthlessly tell-all book, and it's pulled from the publishers and barely listed on amazon.... YOU KNOW IT'S WORTH READING. Dear God this is some of the best writing I've ever read wrapped around a fascinating life story! It's very obvious that the only other review here currently (2-stars with a lame attempt at insult against Leopold) makes it obvious that's someone with a personal vendetta. This book is absolutely worth your time! Super recommended.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Chip Jacobs
    5.0 out of 5 stars An unheralded gem of a memoir from a journalist trying to understand his past
    Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2012
    Format: Paperback
    There is nothing like "News Junkie" out there because there is nobody quite as talented, self-destructive, addiction-oriented and manipulative as Jason was -- before he found love, sobriety and a better way to get at the truth in government, whether it's hidden inside the California energy crisis, where Enron defrauded us all, or Guantanamo Bay, where we house both terrorists and innocents. I'd barely heard of Jason before, except for bits about his infamous experiences at various newspapers that fired him for all sorts of ethical and temper issues. If he weren't a real life survivor of himself, Jason might've been a side character in "Less Than Zero," he was that internally torqued from a bad childhood. At points in this book, you want to club Jason for succumbing to his demons and other times you are rooting for him to not only bust corrupt politicians but square himself so his talent didn't end up in a cemetery before it's time. If not a B.E. Ellis creation, Jason shared more than a little with real-life Charles Bukowski. What a trip it is to see him kicking butt today in alternative journalism, which is lucky to have him, when the trail of affliction and self doubt behind his swagger ran the length of a marathon. If nothing else, Jason Leopold is tough and stable enough today to pull up the floorboards on his unseemly past as a reporter who found the darkest corners in himself. Can't recommend this book enough. You did it, Jason!
    One person found this helpful
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  • M. Schenwar
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best memoirs I've read
    Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2009
    Format: Paperback
    "News Junkie" isn't just a memoir about addiction, though it captures that experience masterfully and compassionately. It examines, through the author's harrowing personal story, the line between passion and obsession, drive and compulsion. Any reader who has ever become attached to something to the point of obsession (that is, probably, every reader) will identify, regardless of whether they know what cocaine feels like. "News Junkie" is also a book about secrets, and Jason Leopold delivers those secrets--even his most carefully guarded ones--with astonishingly candid grace.

    This book is a page-turner in the most accomplished sense. There are no cheap tricks or manufactured plot twists here; the suspense is generated by Leopold's empathy and honesty, his ability to bring readers straight into the heart of his story. This is a magnificent book.
    5 people found this helpful
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