Jon Jeter
Bornca. 1965
Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
NationalityAmerican
Alma materFlorida A&M University
OccupationJournalist
Years active25 years
EmployerWashington Post
Known forProject based on race in 1991 and a project based on AIDs in Africa in 2000
Notable credit(s)Flat Broke, A Day Late and a Dollar Short
TitleSpeaker
AwardsKnight Fellowship Recipient
Websitejonjeter.com

Jon Jeter (ca. 1965 – ), an African-American journalist who was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, speaks and reports on issues regarding social and economic injustices across the United States and around the world.[1][citation needed]

Personal

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Jon Jeter grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana where his father worked in the auto industry and his mother was a housekeeper. Jeter graduated from Florida A&M University with a degree in journalism.[2]

Career

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Jeter landed his first job as a night reporter for the Star Tribunein Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1987. It was there that Jeter developed a passion for reporting about racial discrepancies and economic inequality in the United States. From there he was the local government reporter for the Detroit Free Press, and reported about Mayor Coleman A. Young, who was the Detroit's first African American mayor. From 1993-2005, Jeter worked for the Washington Post, where he was a police reporter, social policy reporter and assigned to its Midwest Bureau in Chicago, African bureau in South Africa (1999 – 2003), and South American bureau (2003 – 2004). He moved to the NPR radio program This American Life. He worked briefly at TeleSur English in Ecuador. Afterward he has written books and been a columnist for MintPress News.[2][3][4]

Notable works of journalism

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Minneapolis
Jon Jeter worked for the Minneapolis Star Tribune in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Jon Jeter has worked on several news stories that earned him finalist spots for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1991 Jeter earned his first recognition for his pieces on race while working at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In 1991 the United States was involved in policies that amplified racial inequality in the United States. The War on Drugs campaign was nearly two full decades into play and sentencing requirements increased the number of young Black men in prisons.[5]

His second story that made it to the finalist round for a Pulitzer Prize was about AIDS in Africa while he was working for the Washington Post in 2000.[4] At that time, Jeter had been working in the Washington Post's African Bureau and reporting first hand on the African continent was experiencing the social devastation as a result of the deadly disease, such as children being orphaned.[6]

Another piece that Jeter is well known for and well respected for is his book on the impacts globalization has had on people entitled: Flat Broke. In this book, Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People Jeter demonstrates how it is not just Blacks in America that have suffered financially because of a broken system but also the broader working class.[7][8] The Washington Post reviewer Roger Atwood said Jeter's "book succeeds in showing the human cost of the sudden opening of vulnerable economies in Africa and, to a lesser extent, Latin America."[7] Susan Gardner of the Daily Kos said this about Jeter's storytelling: "Jeter tells these tales sadly and nobly, with a mingling of melancholy and anger."[9]

Awards

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  • Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 1991[4]
  • Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Washington Post, 2000[4]
  • Stanford's Knight Fellowship Recipient[4]

References

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  1. ^ Jeter, Jon. "Work With Me". JonJeter. Jon Jeter. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
  2. ^ a b Haiphong, Danny (February 14, 2018). "The Independent Journalist Corner: A Conversation with Jon Jeter". Black Agenda Report.
  3. ^ "Jon Jeter". The Globalist. TheGlobalist. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  4. ^ a b c d e "John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford". JSK. Stanford University. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
  5. ^ Alexander, Michelle (2010). The New Jim Crow. New York: The New Press. Retrieved October 20, 2018.
  6. ^ Eckholm, Erik; Tierney, John. "AIDS in Africa: A Killer Rages On". The New York Times. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
  7. ^ a b Atwood, Roger (2009-09-20). "Book Review: 'Flat Broke in the Free Market' by Jon Jeter".
  8. ^ Mundow, Anna. "Globalism, the answer key that isn't". Boston.com.
  9. ^ Gardner, Susan. "Book review: Jon Jeter's "Flat Broke"". Daily Kos. Kos Media. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
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