Mark Bowden

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For other people named Mark Bowden, see Mark Bowden (disambiguation).
Mark Bowden
Bowden at the 2018 U.S. National Book Festival
Bowden at the 2018 U.S. National Book Festival
BornMark Robert Bowden
(1951-07-17) July 17, 1951 (age 70)
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
OccupationAuthor
NationalityAmerican
Notable worksBlack Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War; Hue 1968

Mark Robert Bowden (/ˈbaʊdən/; born July 17, 1951) is an American journalist and writer. He is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He is best known for his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999) about the 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, Somalia. It was adapted as a motion picture of the same name that received two Academy Awards.

He is also known for Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001) about the efforts to take down Pablo Escobar, a Colombian drug lord.

Early life[]

Born in 1951 in St. Louis, Missouri; Bowden is a 1973 graduate of Loyola University Maryland. While he was at college, he was inspired to embark on a career in journalism by reading Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.[1]

He currently lives in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, the Mushroom Capital of the World.

Career[]

From 1979 to 2003, Bowden was a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. In that role he researched and wrote Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo, both of which appeared as lengthy serials in the newspaper before being published as books. He published two books prior to these, Doctor Dealer and Bringing the Heat, both of which were based on reporting he originally did for the newspaper. He has since published nine other books. Bowden wrote the 1997 Playboy interview of Donald Trump.[2]

Bowden is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, and has contributed to Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Men's Journal, Sports Illustrated, Air Mail, Business Insider, and Rolling Stone.

He has taught journalism and creative writing at Loyola University Maryland, and was Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Delaware from 2013 to 2017.

Former Florida State Seminoles football coach Bobby Bowden is his first cousin once removed.[3]

Criticism[]

From June 2012 through March 2013, the legal blog Trials & Tribulations (T&T), which reports on California trials and legal affairs, ran a seven-part series titled "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus".[4] This series disputes elements of Bowden's July 2012 Vanity Fair article, "A Case So Cold It Was Blue".[5] The author suggests that Bowden may have created quotes and states of mind of principals to fit his story, and questions whether the journalist had conducted relevant interviews or attended a single day of the murder trial of former LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus, although this case was the centerpiece of his story.

Part VI of the series, published on T&T in October 2012, noted that Cullen Murphy, Bowden's editor at Vanity Fair, declined to comment on the record to the blog's author about the allegations related to Bowden's article. Part VII,[6] published in March 2013, said that Bowden, who was not approached about the blog's allegations prior to their posting, had since declined to respond to questions posed by the website's blogger regarding his article. He has said that he welcomes questions about it from others.

Poynter Journalism School blog posted an extended analysis of the dispute by Craig Silverman,[7] noting that Vanity Fair had posted a correction to the article, and that "the discrepancies [noted by T&T] don't amount to quote manipulation or a misrepresentation of what was said." Vanity Fair editor Cullen Murphy, in an e-mail to Poynter, said in part "the quotations used in Bowden's text correspond with relevant portions of the video. Some things are hard to make out, and there may be an occasional small variance, but a fair reading would conclude that the quotes track accurately and correctly capture the dynamic of the interrogation. There has been no distortion." Silverman closes by listing three takeaways for newsrooms, one of which is, "Whether or not you like the tone or approach taken by an outside critic, you still have a responsibility to examine claims of factual error or ethical malfeasance," and he notes further that it might have been easier for T&T and Vanity Fair to deal with the issue if they had spoken to one another directly.

On coercive interrogation and torture[]

In the October 2003 issue of The Atlantic, Bowden's article "The Dark Art of Interrogation"[8] advocated a ban on all forms of coercive interrogation. He said that in certain rare instances, interrogators would be morally justified in breaking the law and they ought to face the consequences. Written more than a year before the violations of prisoners were revealed at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers, he wrote, in part:

The Bush Administration has adopted exactly the right posture on the matter. Candor and consistency are not always public virtues. Torture is a crime against humanity, but coercion is an issue that is rightly handled with a wink, or even a touch of hypocrisy; it should be banned but also quietly practiced. Those who protest coercive methods will exaggerate their horrors, which is good: it generates a useful climate of fear. It is wise of the President to reiterate U.S. support for international agreements banning torture, and it is wise for American interrogators to employ whatever coercive methods work. It is also smart not to discuss the matter with anyone.

In The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson, Bowden's article was noted as a reference to the CIA's Project ARTICHOKE.[9] This program developed physical methods that can be used during interrogations and Ronson noted that they can be brutal or fatal.

Future of the media[]

Bowden believes that young people are just as drawn to "deep" journalism as other generations of people have been. He said in March 2009: "Nothing will ever replace language as the medium of thought, so nothing will replace the well-written, originally-reported story, or the well-reasoned essay."[10]

Awards[]

  • Winner Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award for the best book of 2001 (for Killing Pablo)
  • 1997 Winner, Overseas Press Club's for "best reporting from abroad" (for articles published in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the Battle of Mogadishu
  • 1999, finalist, National Book Award for Black Hawk Down
  • Winner, Feature writing award from the Sunday Magazine Editors Association, 1987 (for Finder's Keeper's)
  • Winner, Science Writing Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1980
  • Finalist, best newspaper writing, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1979 (for Life in the Projects)
  • Winner, Maryland Library Association's Maryland Author Award for nonfiction writing, 2011 (for body of work)
  • Winner, Gen. Wallace Greene Award for nonfiction writing, USMC Heritage Foundation 2018 (for Hue 1968)
  • Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Award, History, 2018 (for Hue 1968)
  • Finalist, The Andrew Carnegie Medal, Nonfiction, 2018 (for Hue 1968)
  • Inductee, The Cybersecurity Canon 2018 (for Worm)

Publications[]

  • Bowden, Mark (1987). Doctor dealer. New York: Warner Books.[11]
  • Bringing the Heat (1994; ISBN 0-679-42841-0), NFL, account of 1992 Philadelphia Eagles season, professional football
  • Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999; ISBN 0-87113-738-0), 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, Somalia
  • — (2001) [1987]. Doctor dealer. Reprint. New York: Grove Press.
  • Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001; ISBN 0-87113-783-6); Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord
  • Our Finest Day: D-Day, June 6, 1944 (2002; ISBN 0-8118-3050-0)
  • Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million (2002; ISBN 0-87113-859-X), Joey Coyle finds $1.2 million in cash
  • Road Work : Among Tyrants, Heroes, Rogues, and Beasts (2006; ISBN 0-87113-876-X), collection of 20 non-fiction pieces
  • Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam (2006; ISBN 0-87113-925-1), 1979 Iran hostage crisis
  • The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL (2008; ISBN 0-87113-988-X), about the 1958 NFL championship game; Bowden had assistance analyzing game film from Eagles' coach Andy Reid.[12]
  • Worm: The First Digital World War, about the Conficker computer worm[13] (2011; ISBN 0-8021-1983-2); first covered by Bowden in "The Enemy Within", The Atlantic (June 2010).
  • The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden, (2012 ISBN 0-8021-2034-2)
  • The Three Battles of Wanat and Other True Stories (2016 ISBN 978-0-8021-2411-1)
  • Hue 1968 (2017 ISBN 978-0802127006)
  • The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation (2019 ISBN 978-0802147301

Adapted for film[]

  • Article "The Joey Coyle Story" was adapted as Money for Nothing (1993)
  • Black Hawk Down (2001)
  • The True Story of Killing Pablo (2002), adapted as a TV movie
  • Essence of Combat: Making Black Hawk Down (2003) (video)
  • The True Story of Black Hawk Down (2003) (TV)
  • Guests of the Ayatollah, adapted as a 2006 TV movie
  • Stalking Jihad, adapted as a 2007 TV movie[14]
  • Hue 1968 (2017), to be adapted for a TV series on the Vietnam War, to be directed by Michael Mann[15]

References[]

  1. ^ "My First Literary Crush". Slate. November 15, 2005. Retrieved January 9, 2011.
  2. ^ Bowden, Mark (May 1, 1997). "The Art of the Donald". Playboy (interview). Retrieved 2020-07-12.
  3. ^ Dargan, Michele (April 1, 2012). "Bowden: 1958 Colts-Giants championship an NFL game changer". Palm Beach Daily News. Palm Beach, FL. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
  4. ^ "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus". Sprocket-Trials.
  5. ^ Bowden, Mark (July 2012). "A Case So Cold It Was Blue". Vanity Fair.
  6. ^ "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part VII". March 8, 2013.
  7. ^ Silverman, Craig (September 28, 2012). "Vanity Fair corrects Bowden story about Stephanie Lazarus case". Poynter Institute.
  8. ^ "The Dark Art of Interrogation", The Atlantic, October 2003. Retrieved September 12, 2010.
  9. ^ Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats, pp. 231–234
  10. ^ "Special Guest: Mark Bowden (Part 2)", Bellum, A Project of The Stanford Review, March 17, 2009.
  11. ^ Larry Lavin.
  12. ^ Taylor, Ihsan, "The Best Game Ever: Interview With Mark Bowden", The New York Times, December 25, 2008, 12:55 am. Retrieved 2011-08-17.
  13. ^ "The 'Worm' That Could Bring Down The Internet", author interview (audio and transcript), Fresh Air on NPR, September 27, 2011. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  14. ^ "History TV Shows". History.com. Retrieved 2014-04-28.[permanent dead link]
  15. ^ Leane, Rob (July 7, 2017). "Michael Mann to direct a Vietnam War TV series". denofgeek. Retrieved July 21, 2018.

External links[]

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