Emmett Tyrrell
20th-century American journalist
Robert Emmett Tyrrell Jr. (born December 14, 1943) is an American conservative magazine editor, book author and columnist. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator and writes with the byline "R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr."
Background
Tyrrell was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised Roman Catholic. In 1961, he graduated from Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois.
He attended Indiana University Bloomington, where he was on the swim team under coach James "Doc" Counsilman.
Career
Arkansas Project
Tyrrell was one of those behind the Arkansas Project, financed by Richard Mellon Scaife, to use the Spectator to damage Bill Clinton’s reputation. He detailed the project's purposes and accomplishments in his 2007 book The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President's Life after the White House.
Forced sale
In 2000, government investigations of The American Spectator caused Tyrrell to sell the magazine to venture capitalist George Gilder. In 2003, Gilder, having a series of financial and legal setbacks, resold the magazine back to Tyrrell and the American Alternative Foundation, the organization under which the magazine was originally started, for a dollar. The magazine was initially called The Alternative.
The public source identifies “Emmett Tyrrell” as 20th-century American journalist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Emmett, Tyrrell and 20th-century.
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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 Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5373572. VIAF identifies the subject as 121315256. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1961, 2007 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Emmett Tyrrell” 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.