Greg Mitchell (born 1947) is an American author and journalist. He has written twelve non-fiction books on United States politics and history of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has also written and directed three film documentaries. The feature ''Atomic Cover-up'' (2021) screened at over fifteen film festivals and won multiple awards including the top film/TV award from the Organization of American Historians in 2024. ''The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair'' aired over hundreds of PBS stations in October 2022 and ''The Memorial Day Massacre'' did the same in 2023. Each earned an Emmy Award nomination. His latest book, published by the New Press in 2020, was the award-winning ''The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood — and America — Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb''. His previous book, a bestseller, was published by Crown in October 2016 (and in ten editions abroad), was ''The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill''. From 2009 to 2016 he blogged on the media and politics for ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

'', where he closely covered

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...

. He co-produced the acclaimed 2014 film documentary ''Following the Ninth'', about the political and cultural influence of

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

's Ninth Symphony. In three recent books, he has addressed issues of the relations between the press and government, especially related to the conduct of the 21st-century United States wars in

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. His book, ''The Campaign of the Century'' (1992), about

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author, muckraker journalist, and political activist, and the 1934 California gubernatorial election, 1934 Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

's run for governor of California and the rise of media politics, received the 1993 Goldsmith Book Prize for journalism. It was adapted by

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

as a documentary episode for its seven-part series on ''The

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

'' (1993). In addition, it was adapted as a

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

-style musical and received an award in California in 2006 for musical theatre. Mitchell was editor of '' Nuclear Times'' magazine (1982 to 1986), and became interested in the history of the United States' use of the atom bomb during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. He addressed issues related to this in a 1996 book co-written with Robert Jay Lifton, ''Hiroshima in America'', and a later book, ''Atomic Cover-up''.

Early life and education

Greg Mitchell was born in 1947 in

Upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region of New York (state), New York that lies north and northwest of the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area of downstate New York. Upstate includes the middle and upper Hudson Valley, ...

Career

He first worked in journalism as a summer intern for the '' Niagara Falls Gazette'' (now the ''Niagara Gazette''). In the 1970s, Mitchell began working for ''

Crawdaddy! ''Crawdaddy'' was an American rock music magazine launched in 1966. It was created by Paul Williams, a Swarthmore College student at the time, in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music. The magazine w ...

'' magazine, where he became a senior editor. With fellow editor Peter Knobler, Mitchell is credited with helping to create in December 1972 and publish the first magazine article about the now-prominent musician

Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American Rock music, rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Nicknamed "the Boss", Springsteen has released 21 studio albums spanning six decades; most of his albums feature th ...

. They first met Springsteen and watched him perform at a promo gig in Sing Sing Prison before his first album was released. Mitchell served as editor of ''Nuclear Times'' magazine from 1982 to 1986. He has written numerous articles about the atomic bombings during

, published in magazines and newspapers including ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' and ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''. His book on how the U.S. suppressed shocking footage shot by American military film crews in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ''Atomic Cover-Up'', was published in 2011. He was the editor of ''

Editor & Publisher ''Editor & Publisher'' (''E&P'') is an American monthly trade news magazine covering the news media industry. Published since 1901, ''Editor & Publisher'' is the self-described "bible of the newspaper industry," with offices in Hendersonville, ...

'' (''E&P'') (2002 through 2009), Pérez-Peña, Richard
"Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews Close,"
''New York Times'' (Dec. 10, 2009). which covers the news and newspaper industry. Mitchell is co-author with Robert Jay Lifton of ''Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial'' (1996) on the perceptions in the United States of the

nuclear bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...

ing of

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...

and

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

during

. In an interview, he discussed the long-censored stories of the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'' correspondent George Weller, the first Western news reporter to reach

after the atomic bombing. He wrote a second book with Lifton about

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

, called ''Who Owns Death?'' (2002). Mitchell has written two books about notable

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

political campaigns: ''The Campaign of the Century'' (1992) examined

's race for governor in 1934 and the birth of media-driven elections.

adapted it as "We Have a Plan", the fourth of seven documentary episodes featured in ''The

'' (1993) series, produced and directed by Lyn Goldfarb.''The Great Depression'' series
Lyn Goldfarb Productions, accessed 4 February 2013 In 2011 the book was republished in new print and e-book editions.Greg Mitchell, "Upton Sinclair's EPIC Campaign"
''The Nation'', 1 November 2011, accessed 4 February 2013 It was also adapted as a

-style musical and first produced in a concert version at the Chicago Humanities Festival in 2004. The book is by Robert L. Freedman, lyrics by Freedman and Steven Lutvak, and music by Lutvak. In 2006 it won the California Musical Theatre Award from the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild. Mitchell's ''Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady:

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

Helen Gahagan Douglas Helen Gahagan Douglas (born Helen Mary Gahagan; November 25, 1900 – June 28, 1980) was an American actress and politician. Gahagan Douglas's acting career included success on Broadway theatre, Broadway, as a touring opera singer, and in Hollyw ...

— Sexual Politics and the

Red Scare A Red Scare is a form of moral panic provoked by fear of the rise of left-wing ideologies in a society, especially communism and socialism. Historically, red scares have led to mass political persecution, scapegoating, and the ousting of thos ...

, 1950'' (1998) studies an era in California politics as it reflected and influenced national issues in the post-World War II years. He also wrote an e-book on the Obama-Romney race in 2012 titled ''Truth, Lies, and Videotape''. Three of Mitchell's recent books have dealt with relations between the press and government, inspired in part by revelations of Bush administration misdirection related to justification of the War in Iraq, as well as issues related to the

scandal. These are ''So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed in Iraq'' (2008)—re-published as an e-book in 2013, '' Bradley Manning: Truth and Consequences'' (2011, coauthor with Kevin Gosztola), and ''The Age of WikiLeaks'' (2011). Mitchell writes a regular

Substack Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription-based content, including newsletters, podcasts, and video. It allows writers to send digital content directl ...

newsletter on music and politics — ''Between Rock and a Hard Place''.

Views on news coverage

In 2003 and 2004, Mitchell wrote and spoke about issues in journalistic integrity. In an ''E&P'' column in 2003, Mitchell wrote about having made up some quotes in a man-in-the-street article at age 21, while working as a summer intern (what he described as his

Jayson Blair Jayson Thomas Blair (born March 23, 1976) is a former American journalist who worked for ''The New York Times''. In May 2003, he resigned from the newspaper following the revelation of fabrication and plagiarism within his articles. In 2004, h ...

moment). He was then working for the '' Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette'' (now the ''Niagara Gazette'') and assigned to gather quotes from tourists at Niagara Falls. He wrote that he and other journalists learn from their mistakes. In a 2004 interview with the Echo Chamber Project, Mitchell discussed the duty of news reporters to be "skeptical." He cited coverage of the Bush administration's justification of the 2003 War in Iraq as a failure of the media to exercise skepticism. He said, Whether covering Washington or a small town, Mitchell said,

Personal life

From his first marriage, Mitchell has a daughter Jeni, who lives in London. After the divorce, he married the writer Barbara Bedway. They live in

Nyack, New York Nyack () is a Village (New York), village primarily located in the Town (New York), town of Orangetown, New York, Orangetown in Rockland County, New York, United States. Incorporated in 1872, a small western section of the village lies in Clarkst ...

. The couple has a son, Andy, who has become a filmmaker. Mitchell wrote about their experiences in Little League baseball in his memoir ''Joy in Mudville'' (2000).Online review
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Awards

* Winner of the 1993 Goldsmith Book Prize for ''The Campaign of the Century'', Joan Shorenstein Center, Harvard Kennedy School"Winner of the 1993 Goldsmith Book Prize
] , Joan Shorenstein Center,

Harvard Kennedy School The John F. Kennedy School of Government, commonly referred to as Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), is the school of public policy of Harvard University, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Kennedy School offers master's de ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Books

''The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood―and America―Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb''
(2020)
''The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill''
(2016)
''Atomic Cover-Up: Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and The Greatest Movie Never Made''
(2011)
''The Age of WikiLeaks''
(2011)
''Bradley Manning: Truth and Consequences''
(2011) * ''So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits — and the President — Failed in Iraq'' (2008) * ''October Light: Paris and Auvers'', photographs by Greg Mitchell (2006) * ''Joy in Mudville: A Little League Memoir'' (2000/2002) * ''Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon Vs Helen Gahagan Douglas — Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950'' (1998) * ''Very Seventies: A Cultural History of the 1970s, from the Pages of Crawdaddy'', ed. Peter Knobler and Greg Mitchell (1995) * ''The Campaign of the Century:

's E.P.I.C. Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics'' (1992) Reissued in 2011 in print and e-book editions as ''The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics'') * ''Truth and Consequences: 7 Who Would Not Be Silenced'' (1987)

With Robert Jay Lifton

* ''Who Owns Death?: Capital Punishment, the American Conscience, and the End of Executions'' (2002) * ''Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial'' (1996)