Eric Schlosser (born August 17, 1959) is an award-winning American journalist and author known for investigative or muckraking journalism. A number of critics have compared his work to that of Upton Sinclair [1].
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Personal History
Schlosser was born in Manhattan, New York and spent his childhood there and in Los Angeles, California. His father, Herbert Schlosser, was a former Wall Street lawyer who turned to broadcasting later in his career, eventually becoming the President of NBC in 1974. Schlosser is married to Shauna Redford, daughter of Robert Redford, and has two children. Eric Schlosser studied American History at Princeton University and earned a graduate degree in British Imperial History from Oxford. Schlosser now lives in California and is working on a book about the prison system.
Work
As an aspiring playwright Schlosser wrote the play Americans in 1985. It deals with the theme of American imperialism at the beginning of the 20th century, and features Leon Czolgosz, William McKinley's assassin, who kills the President in anger over U.S. occupation of the Philippines. Americans was produced in 2003, but is not available in the United States. We the People, another play drawing on American history—in this case, the events surrounding the writing of the United States Constitution—followed in 2007.[2] Schlosser started his career as a journalist with the The Atlantic Monthly in Boston, Massachusetts. He quickly gained recognition for his investigative journalism at the magazine earning two awards within two years of joining; he won the National Magazine Award for reporting for his two part series “Reefer Madness” and “Marijuana and the Law” (Atlantic Monthly, August and September, 1994), and he won the Sidney Hillman Foundation award for his article, “In the Strawberry Fields” (Atlantic Monthly, November 19,1995). Aside from the Atlantic Monthly, Schlosser's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The Nation and The New Yorker. Schlosser is known for his bestselling book, Fast Food Nation, an exposé on the unsanitary and discriminatory practices of the fast food industry. Fast Food Nation evolved from a two-part article in Rolling Stone. Schlosser helped adapt his book into a 2006 film directed by Richard Linklater. The film based opened November 19, 2006. Schlosser is credited as co-screenwriter and executive producer. He has also written the 2003 book Reefer Madness.
Schlosser appears in an interview for the DVD of Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, having a one-on-one discussion with the filmmaker about the fast-food industry. He declined to appear in the film itself and rarely makes appearances in public.
Food Industry's Reaction to Schlosser's work
In May 2006, Schlosser and his co-author Charles Wilson released a children's book entitled "Chew On This." The book, along with increasing publicity for the Hollywood movie based on Fast Food Nation, resulted in 18 food industry associations launching the www.bestfoodnation.com website as part of a major public relations campaign. The site presents statements about health and labor practices in the American beef, pork, dairy, potato and other industries. One page includes two press releases accusing Schlosser of publishing misinformation.[1] However, few of the site's responses to the "myths" it accuses Schlosser and his allies of propagating actually answer any of the issues raised in his writings.
References
- Janet Adamy and Richard Gibson, Flak Over 'Fast Food Nation' U.S. Food Manufacturers Rally To Oppose a Film and a Book That Blame Them for Obesity, May 18, 2006.
- Crain's Chicago Business, Authors and McDonald's Exchange More Volleys, June 2, 2006
- Best Food Nation: What Others are Saying (Accessed July 26, 2006)
- Commencement address at DePauw University, May 22, 2005
- The New New Journalism August 12, 2006
Links
- (pdf) Biography at Royce Carlton Publishers, December 11, 2006
- Biography at Drury University, December 11, 2006
- (MS Word) Biography at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, December 11, 2006
- Ubben Lecture at DePauw University
- Session I: "Moving Beyond Fast Food Nation" (University Channel audio/video) This is the opening session of a Princeton University conference on "Food, Ethics and the Environment", with Peter Singer. Eric Schlosser is introduced at minute 30:30.
