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James Freeman (journalist)

American journalist and author specializing in economics

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 10, 2023
Entity authorityQ65029448 ↗
Source-derived summary

James Freeman is an American journalist specializing in economics, assistant editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal, and author.

Freeman is a graduate of Yale College. After graduation, he served as investor advocate at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Freeman is co-author with Vern McKinley of Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi, a 2018 history of Citigroup. The Financial Times describes it as a "rollicking" tale "of hubris, over-reach and outright catastrophe" which is especially "excellent" on "the US economy in the 19th century, and the extent to which it relied on cotton, an 'economy . . . built on America’s original sin, the monstrous institution of slavery'".

He is also the co-author with Maria Bartiromo of a book titled The Cost: Trump, China, and American Renewal which was published by Simon & Schuster in October 2020.

He is the son of Neal B. Freeman.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “James Freeman (journalist)” as american journalist and author specializing in economics. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Freeman and journalist.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2018, 2020—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1950-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with James, Freeman and journalist providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “James Freeman (journalist)”, the useful work is to connect “american journalist and author specializing in economics” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q65029448. VIAF identifies the subject as 114872701. The Library of Congress control number is n85115226. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018 and 2020.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “James Freeman (journalist)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.