David Cay Johnston to leave the NY Times

[Demosthenes]

Release Date: MARCH 04, 2008

Published by Tax AnalystsTM

David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose books about taxes and the IRS became New York Times bestsellers, is leaving The New York Times after 13 years.

Johnston told Tax Analysts on March 4 that he has yet to work out the details, but that he is accepting a buyout from the Times and that his last day on the job would be, fittingly enough, "soon after tax day."

After reporting for almost 40 years at several big-city newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, Johnston first began to focus on taxes when he was hired by the Times in 1995.

From the beginning of his tenure with the Times, Johnston said, his guiding premise was that "there was a different way to cover tax."

In his newspaper reporting, Johnston concentrated largely on tax code loopholes as well as the inequities in how tax law is enforced. He expanded on these subjects in his books, Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch, generally building on his theory that "we've created a system in which we take from the middle class and the upper middle class to subsidize the super rich."

Johnston won the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting in 2001. He is the latest Pulitzer Prize winner to announce his departure from the Times since the paper's announcement two weeks ago that it would seek to eliminate 100 news jobs in 2008. Veteran Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse also said recently that she was accepting a buyout from the paper.

He plans to collaborate on documentaries and pursue long-form magazine journalism, he said. "It just makes sense for me to go to the next stage of my career."

[Dezcad]

He won the Pulitzer for his coverage on the tax protest movement, by the way. He also won the coveted IRE Award (Investigative Reporters and Editors) for his 2004 book "Perfectly Legal."

Speaking of books.....how's it progressing?

[Joey Smith]

DCJ quit because he knew that the truth is about to be revealed.

[webhick]

DCJ quit because he knew that the truth is about to be revealed.

By blind anchovies singing bad a capella on the subway platform, mindlessly strumming guitars without strings and swaying drunkenly to an inaudible beat. Those with quick reflexes may be able to spot their little mini cardboard signs announcing the coming of the ant-badger before a starving artist scoops them up, slams them against a canvas, and calls the bloody mess "art".

The truth is out there. And it just happens to be a disgusting pizza topping. And "art".

[Joey Smith]

The political bickering goes to Ranting & Raving.

:angrybird:

[LPC]

By the way, his name is "JohnsTon," not "Johnson."