Richard Behar | |
|---|---|
 Behar congratulated by President George H. W. Bush upon receiving Worth Bingham Prize | |
| Born | New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Investigative journalist |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | New York University |
| Notable awards | Gerald Loeb Award, Conscience-in-Media Award, Worth Bingham Prize, George Polk Award, Overseas Press Club Award |
| Website | |
| www | |
Richard Behar is an American investigative journalist. Since 2012, he has been the Contributing Editor of Investigations for Forbes . From 1982 to 2004, he wrote on the staffs of Forbes, Time , and Fortune . Behar's work has also been featured on BBC, CNN, PBS, FoxNews.com, and Fast Company magazine. He is the author of the 2024 book Madoff: The Final Word, which details the Bernard Madoff fraud. [1] [2]
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Behar was born to a Jewish family [3] in Manhattan and raised on Long Island. [4] He is a 1982 graduate of New York University. Before joining Time in 1989, he was a reporter and associate editor for Forbes magazine for six years. He has also worked at The New York Times as a researcher and writer. Behar reported extensively about organized crime and the business backgrounds of politicians for Time, for whom Behar wrote a 1993 cover story on the World Trade Center bombing.[ citation needed ]
In 1991, he wrote "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power", a Time cover story on Scientology, [5] which won several awards. [6] The Church of Scientology brought several lawsuits over the article, all of which were eventually dismissed. [6] While investigating the story, he experienced some of Scientology's fair game tactics. He later learned that a copy of his personal credit report, containing detailed personal information, had been improperly obtained. [5]
A 2003 report by Behar in Fortune explored Donald Rumsfeld's role in helping North Korea build its potential Nuclear weapon capacity, in an article entitled "Rummy’s North Korea Connection: What Did Donald Rumsfeld Know About ABB’s Deal to Build Nuclear Reactors There? And Why Won’t He Talk About It?" [7] Behar is the only known journalist to have read the classified Phoenix Memo, the infamous pre-9/11 FBI document which warned the FBI about Osama bin Laden supporters enrolling in flight-training schools across the country. [8] Reporting from Pakistan for Fortune magazine and CNN after 9-11, Behar’s “The Karachi Connection” broke ground[ according to whom? ] by exposing a logistics leader of the 9-11 attacks—including his secret travels near the Afghanistan border just days before the terror attacks. A second article, "Kidnapped Nation" revealed how radical forces are undermining Pakistan's economy.[ citation needed ]
In 2000 Behar penned an article published in Fortune titled "Capitalism in a Cold Climate" investigating the business practices of the billionaire brothers David and Simon Reuben in the aluminum and aluminum smeltlng business in the post-Soviet Russian Republic. Subsequently in June 2001, Behar and Time Inc. were sued for libel by the billionaire siblings, who built one of the world's largest aluminum companies, Trans-World Group. They claimed Behar defamed them in the article. Shortly before trial, in July 2004, the suit was settled after Fortune ran a lengthy "update and clarification." [9] [10]
In October 2004, Behar left Fortune to pursue book writing and various independent projects.[ according to whom? ] In July 2005 he launched Project Klebnikov, described as a "global media alliance investigating" the July 2004, murder of Paul Klebnikov, who was then the editor-in-chief of Forbes Russia . Behar also served on the advisory committee of New York University's business journalism Master's program (BER), and wrote Madoff: The Final Word, a book about Bernard Madoff, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2024. [1] The book was initially purchased by Random House. [2] During his research for the book, Behar exchanged emails with Madoff and also conducted three in-person prison interviews with him. [11] [12]
In 2015, Behar and journalist Gary Weiss co-founded The Mideast Reporter, subsequently known as Mideast Dig, a nonprofit news site and investigative journalism project. Its aim is to deepen news coverage of the Middle East. [13] Weiss left the project in November 2015. [14] It became inactive in 2018 due to lack of funding and closed in March 2025. [15]
