Steven Brill

Co-CEO and Co-Editor-In-Chief

Journalist and Author – and Founder of Court TV, The American Lawyer Magazine, American Lawyer Media, Brill’s Content Magazine, Journalism Online, and The Yale Journalism Initiative

Areas of particular expertise: The media business and journalism practices; law, law firms, the Justice Department, criminal justice; homeland security; Trump businesses; education reform; health care.

Recent

  • Author of Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall – and Those Fighting to Reverse It (May 29, 2018, Knopf)
  • Co-Founder in 2018 of NewsGuard, Inc, which rates the reliability of news and information websites.
  • Author of the New York Times best-seller: America’s Bitter Pill (January 5, 2015, Random House)
  • Author of 15-part DocuSerial™ and Podcast, published by Huffington Post: “America’s Most Admired Law Breaker”
  • Author of investigation of Trump University (TIME, November 2015)
  • Author of “Are We Any Safer” (special report in The Atlantic, September 2016)

Earlier

  • Founder: Journalism Online, LLC, conceived in 2009 to create a new, viable business model for journalism to flourish online. More than 500 newspaper and magazines launched their paid content initiatives on Journalism Online’s Press+ platform. The company was sold to RR Donnelley in 2011.
  • Feature writer: TIME magazine cover story “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us” (March 4, 2013); Columnist: TIME magazine (2013-14)
  • “Bitter Pill” awarded the National Magazine Award for Public Service (May 2014)
  • Feature articles also published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, TIME, Esquire, New York Magazine, and Harpers;
  • Adjunct professor:  Yale College
  • Author:  The Teamsters (a New York Times best-seller); Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools, and AFTER: How America Confronted the September 12th Era
  • Founder, CEO, Verified Identity Pass, Inc., the first US biometric Voluntary Credentialing Program
  • Adjunct professor: Yale Law School
  • Founder, CEO and Editor In Chief: Brill’s Content Magazine
  • Founder, CEO and Editor In Chief: Court TV
  • Founder, CEO and Editor In Chief: The American Lawyer Magazine and American Lawyer Media (10 related legal periodicals)
  • Assistant to New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay, concentrating on law enforcement issues (while enrolled at Yale Law School)
  • Graduate (summa cum laude) of Yale College and Yale Law School
  • Winner of multiple National Magazine Awards, beginning in 1982 and most recently in 2014.
  • Seminar leader, founder, and outside coordinator: The Yale Journalism Initiative
    • Endowed by Brill and his wife, Cynthia, the Yale Journalism Initiative has trained and motivated more than 100 Yale Journalism Scholars who are employed at some of the world’s most prestigious news organizations and who help newly-graduated Scholars as they enter this network.
    • The Initiative:
      1. encourages talented young people to consider the journalism profession;
      2. offers training for the profession (through seminars and funded internships);
      3. provides career guidance (via a funded on-campus career counselor); and
      4. gives graduates a credential (“Yale Journalism Scholar”) that will help them obtain employment as journalists.

Personal: Married to NewsGuard General Counsel Cynthia Brill.