Jack Abraham Newfield (February 18, 1938 – December 21, 2004) was a
muckraking journalist, columnist, author, documentary film maker, activist, and fierce champion of underdogs. Mr. Newfield wrote for the
The Village Voice,
Daily News,
New York Post,
New York Sun,
New York Magazine,
Parade Magazine,
Tikkun (magazine),
Mother Jones (magazine), and
The Nation and monthly columns for several labor union newspapers. Mr. Newfield believed
"the facts" should be contextualized within a larger understandings. In his autobiography,
"Somebody's Gotta Tell It: The Upbeat Memoir of a Working-Class Journalist" (2002), Mr. Newfield stated,
"The point is not to confuse objectivity with truth." A career beat reporter, Mr. Newfield wrote prolifically about modern society, culture, and politics, on a range of topics relevant to urban life, such as municipal corruption, the police, and labor unions, and also professional sports, especially baseball and boxing, as well as contemporary music. He authored numerous books about modern social and political subjects, including
A Prophetic Minority (1966) and
Robert Kennedy : A Memoir. His received the
American Book Award for
The Full Rudy: The Man, the Myth, the Mania about
New York City Mayor
Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Newfield was a Senior Fellow at
The Nation Institute, and an Emmy-award winning documentary film maker.