Jim wrote the autobiographical statement below in 2017. For more about his life and work, see his obituary in the New York Times.

I am 80 years old and have been a journalist since I was 18. My interest has always been the same, to be a reporter in the mold of Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, and more recently Murray Kempton. In that sense my driving goal is that of advocacy journalist, a person who seeks to tell the truth and who is actively engaged in promoting social justice.

I have written throughout my life about mainstream society–electoral politics including presidential elections since 1976; health care; financial regulation; and corporate malfeasance. I have written books about corrupt universities, the environment and the exploitation of natural resources, and energy policy. I have reported from Eastern Europe, the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, and Haiti.

In recent years, my focus has been more on those hidden parts of American society that few in the mainstream may know about or understand: The growth and ultimately the mainstreaming of the racist far-right. The cultural underpinnings and economic realities of the sex industry as told by the people who work in it. And most recently, the world of prisons, with an emphasis on the experiences of those who inhabit them.

I write for whomever wants to read me and owe loyalty to no political party or ideology, though my work over the years has found a home in publications associated with the left: most of all the Village Voice; my own publications such as Hard Times during the late 1960s and The Elements in the 1970s; more recently Mother Jones. I believe in providing a forum for silenced and marginalized people to have a voice. I think progressive change in America comes from the further shores of our society, and seldom from the middle.

My current project, and the one closest to my heart, is Solitary Watch, which seeks to shine a light on one of the darkest corners of our criminal justice system. At the same time, I am at work updating my 1995 book Blood in the Face to reflect a new era in the history of white nationalism in the United States, with a new edition slated for future publication by Haymarket Books.