James Ledbetter | |
---|---|
Born | James Lester Ledbetter Jr. October 9, 1964 Manchester, Connecticut, U.S. |
Died | October 28, 2024 60) New York City, U.S. | (aged
Alma mater | Yale University |
Years active | 1985–2024 |
Spouse | Erinn Bucklan (separated) |
Children | 1 |
James Lester Ledbetter Jr. (October 9, 1964 – October 28, 2024) was an American author, journalist and editor based in New York City.
Ledbetter established his national profile in journalism through a clever ruse. In 1985, as a Yale University undergraduate and avowed progressive, Ledbetter decided to impersonate a right-wing, Reaganite student zealot. [1] He went to the Washington D.C. offices of Accuracy in Academia, a neo-McCarthyite watchdog group, and successfully had himself recruited to join. [1] AIA's mission on the college campuses of the 1980s was to compile lists of allegedly "unpatriotic" left-wing professors, and to submit these lists to the Reed Irvine-led group Accuracy in Media, who would then publicize the names as a warning to American college students nationally to avoid these allegedly "anti-American" academics. Ledbetter then (as an undergraduate) published a scathing exposé of Accuracy in Academia, "Campus Double Agent," in the December 30, 1985, issue of The New Republic. [1]
On graduating college, Ledbetter worked as a speechwriter for Elizabeth Holtzman, Brooklyn Attorney General, from 1986 to 1987. [1] He thereafter worked full-time for Mark Green's public advocacy group in New York City, New Democracy Project, from 1987 to 1988. [1]
Next, Ledbetter worked as an editor for the New York listings magazine Seven Days from 1988 to 1990. [1] Thereafter, still in his mid-twenties, he was hired to write the weekly "Press Clips" column vacated by Alexander Cockburn at The Village Voice from 1990 to 1998. [1]
Next, Ledbetter served as the New York bureau chief at The Industry Standard (www.thestandard.net), a weekly print and online magazine that covered the nascent Internet economy, from 1998 to August 2001, when The Industry Standard suddenly folded. [1] Moving to London in 2001, Ledbetter worked as a senior editor at Time magazine's European Desk from 2002 to 2007. [1] Upon returning to New York, he worked briefly as a senior editor at Fortune magazine. [1]
Ledbetter then worked as an editor-in-chief at online media start-up The Big Money, which served as Slate’s effort at a stand-alone business site. This magazine lasted two years, 2008-2010. He left Slate in 2010 for Thomson Reuters in 2010, where he became the wire service’s first Op-Ed editor. He worked there until January 2014, when he was hired by Inc. magazine as a senior editor. In 2018, Ledbetter became Inc.'s Editor-in-Chief, until early 2020. [1]
Over the decades, Ledbetter's writing also has appeared in several other US publications, including The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Nation , Mother Jones , Vibe , Newsday , and The American Prospect .
Ledbetter served as the chief content officer at Sequoia Capital, and as of 2024 [update] was Observer 's executive editor. [2]
Ledbetter's most recent book is One Nation Under Gold, published in 2017 by Liveright Press. Forbes magazine reviewer Ralph Benko called the book "wildly entertaining as well as informative." [3] Ledbetter's previous works include Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex, published in 2011 by Yale University Press, Dispatches for the New York Tribune: Selected Journalism of Karl Marx, published in the UK in 2007 and the U.S. in 2008 by Penguin Classics, Starving to Death on $200 Million: The Short, Absurd Life of The Industry Standard, and Made Possible By...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States.
James Lester Ledbetter Jr. was born in Manchester, Connecticut, on October 9, 1964. [1] He and his wife, Erinn Bucklan, had a son before separating. [1]
Ledbetter died from a heart attack at his Manhattan residence on October 28, 2024, at the age of 60. [1] [4]
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