Bio

Business reporter Richard Behar has garnered more than 20 major journalism awards over a career spanning 25 years. He was called “one of the most dogged of our watchdogs” by the late Jack Anderson – a founding father of modern investigative reporting. From 1982-2004, Behar worked on the staffs of Forbes, Time and Fortune magazines. He has also done assignments for the BBC, CNN, FoxNews.com and PBS. In 2005, Behar launched Project Klebnikov, a global media alliance committed to shedding light on the Moscow murder of Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov and to furthering the investigative work that Paul began. (Members of Project K include Bloomberg, The Economist and Forbes.)

Behar’s travels have taken him to more than 40 countries – recently within the sub-Sahara, where he penned a 24-page special report for Fast Company magazine entitled “China Storms Africa.” (The article won George Polk and Overseas Press Club awards in 2009). In December of 2008, Behar was commissioned by Random House to write a book about the Bernard Madoff scandal.

Major awards include the Gerald Loeb, Polk (twice), National Magazine, Overseas Press Club (twice), Daniel Pearl, and Worth Bingham Prize, among other honors – on subjects ranging from terror financing in Karachi to counterfeiting in Beijing; from corporate wrongdoing on Wall Street to the Russian mob in Siberia. Behar wrote an acclaimed cover story in Time magazine on the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and was praised by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau for his award-winning articles exposing organized crime in New York City’s garbage trade. Behar’s work in the 1980s exposing corruption inside the IRS sparked a Congressional hearing that led to reforms, and his “The Karachi Connection,” reported from Pakistan, exposed a logistics leader of the 9-11 attacks.

Behar was included among the 100 top business journalists of the 20th century by The Journalist and Financial Reporter, and was named Business Journalist of the Year in London in 2001. He also received the rarely-bestowed Conscience-in-Media Award for “singular commitment to the highest principles of journalism at notable personal cost” from the American Society of Journalists and Authors -- for a Time cover story on the Church of Scientology. In 2002, as part of CNN’s Investigation Team, Behar received the National Headliner Award for ‘‘outstanding continuing coverage of attacks on America and their aftermath.”

Behar was born in Manhattan, raised on Long Island, and is a graduate of New York University. He today serves on the advisory committee of NYU’s business journalism masters program.