James Steele is part of the investigative reporting duo of Barlett and Steele, winners of two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Magazine Awards and upwards of 50 other national journalism awards. Two of their eight books have been New York Times bestsellers: The Betrayal of the American Dream and the first edition of America: What Went Wrong? They began working together at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and their writing has appeared in Time, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

A graduate of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Steele began his journalism career at the Kansas City Times, where he covered labor, politics and urban affairs before moving to The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1970. After 27 years as an investigative reporter at The Inquirer, he joined Time in 1997. In 2006, he became a contributing editor of Vanity Fair.