Radley Balko
Encyclopedia
Radley Balko is an American
libertarian
journalist
, blogger
, and speaker
.
and political science
in 1997 from Indiana University
.
. Previously, he was a senior editor at Reason
magazine, and a policy analyst for the Cato Institute
, specializing in vice and civil liberties issues. He writes on drug policy
, police misconduct
, obesity
, alcohol
and tobacco
, and civil liberties
. He also writes on trade
and globalization
issues and more generally on politics and culture. He was also a biweekly columnist for Fox News from 2002 until 2009. His work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes
, Playboy
, TIME magazine, The Washington Post
, the Los Angeles Times
, Slate
, Reason
, Worth
magazine, Canada's National Post
, and the Chicago Tribune
. He blogs at The Agitator, his personal weblog, and for Reasons Hit & Run blog. He has appeared on CNN
, CNBC
, Fox News
, MSNBC
, and National Public Radio.
Balko's work on "no-knock
" drug raids was profiled in The New York Times
, and cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer
in his dissent in the case Hudson v. Michigan
. He is credited with breaking and reporting the Cory Maye
case; his work on the Maye case was cited by the Mississippi Supreme Court. He has also written extensively about the Ryan Frederick
case and the raid on Cheye Calvo
's home.
Balko has advocated the abolition of laws criminalizing drunk driving, arguing that the "punishable act should be violating road rules or causing an accident, not the factors that led to those offenses. Singling out alcohol impairment for extra punishment isn't about making the roads safer."
In 2011, The Week
named Balko a finalist for Opinion Columnist of the Year. Also in 2011, the Los Angeles Press Club named Balko Best of Show Journalist of the Year, the judges saying:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, blogger
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, and speaker
Public speaking
Public speaking is the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence, or entertain the listeners...
.
Education
Balko earned a B.A. in journalismJournalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
and political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
in 1997 from Indiana University
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...
.
Employment and publications
Balko is senior writer and investigative reporter for The Huffington PostThe Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
. Previously, he was a senior editor at Reason
Reason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
magazine, and a policy analyst for the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
, specializing in vice and civil liberties issues. He writes on drug policy
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
, police misconduct
Police misconduct
Police misconduct refers to inappropriate actions taken by police officers in connection with their official duties. Police misconduct can lead to a miscarriage of justice and sometimes involves discrimination...
, obesity
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
, alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
and tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, and civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
. He also writes on trade
Trade
Trade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
and globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
issues and more generally on politics and culture. He was also a biweekly columnist for Fox News from 2002 until 2009. His work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
, Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
, TIME magazine, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, Reason
Reason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
, Worth
Worth (magazine)
Worth is an American wealth management magazine for high net worth individuals. It is published on a bi-monthly basis and circulated to over 110,000 recipients.-History:Worth was founded in 1992 as a wealth management magazine for high net worth individuals...
magazine, Canada's National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
, and the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
. He blogs at The Agitator, his personal weblog, and for Reasons Hit & Run blog. He has appeared on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, CNBC
CNBC
CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
, Fox News
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
, MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
, and National Public Radio.
Balko's work on "no-knock
No knock warrant
In the US, a no knock warrant is a warrant issued by a judge that allows law enforcement officers to enter a property without immediate prior notification of the residents, such as by knocking or ringing a doorbell. In most cases, law enforcement will identify themselves just before they forcefully...
" drug raids was profiled in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, and cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer
Stephen Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyer is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law, Breyer is generally associated with the more liberal side of the Court....
in his dissent in the case Hudson v. Michigan
Hudson v. Michigan
Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U. S. 586 , is a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that a violation of the Fourth Amendment requirement that police officers knock, announce their presence, and wait a reasonable amount of time before entering a private residence does not require...
. He is credited with breaking and reporting the Cory Maye
Cory Maye
Cory Jermaine Maye , is a former prisoner in the U.S. state of Mississippi. He was originally convicted of murder in the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi police officer Ron W. Jones during a drug raid on the other half of Maye's duplex. Maye has said he thought that the intruders were burglars...
case; his work on the Maye case was cited by the Mississippi Supreme Court. He has also written extensively about the Ryan Frederick
Ryan Frederick
Ryan David Frederick is a prisoner in Virginia. On February 4, 2009, he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment following conviction for voluntary manslaughter for the January 17, 2008 shooting death of police officer Jarrod Shivers...
case and the raid on Cheye Calvo
Cheye Calvo
Cheye M. Calvo is an American politician and the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, elected in 2004. Calvo and his wife moved to Berwyn Heights after the elementary school reopened in 2002 In July 2008, his house was raided in a controversial incident with the Prince George's County Police and...
's home.
Balko has advocated the abolition of laws criminalizing drunk driving, arguing that the "punishable act should be violating road rules or causing an accident, not the factors that led to those offenses. Singling out alcohol impairment for extra punishment isn't about making the roads safer."
Awards
In 2009, Balko's investigative report on expert witness fraud in a Louisiana death penalty case won the Western Publication Association’s Maggie Award for reporting.In 2011, The Week
The Week
The Week, styled as THE WEEK, is a weekly news magazine.-History:It was founded in the United Kingdom by Jolyon Connell in 1995. In April 2001, the magazine began publishing an American edition; an Australian edition followed in October 2008. Dennis Publishing publishes the U.K. and Australian...
named Balko a finalist for Opinion Columnist of the Year. Also in 2011, the Los Angeles Press Club named Balko Best of Show Journalist of the Year, the judges saying:
Radley Balko is one of those throw-back journalists that understands the power of groundbreaking reporting and how to make a significant impact through his work. Time and time again, his stories cause readers to stop, think, and most significantly, take action.
External links
- The Agitator, Balko's personal blog
- Nashville Byline, Balko's other personal blog
- Reason Magazine Staff Biography of Radley Balko
- Balko's columns at Fox News
- Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America by Radley Balko
- Video (and audio) conversation with Balko and David Freddoso on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...