About Jake Whitney

Jake Whitney has been writing fearless, influential, compelling journalism for more than 20 years. After obtaining his master’s degree in the mid- 2000s, he launched his career penning features for local newspapers before cutting his teeth in investigative journalism for feisty e-zine start-ups. Over the years, he’s written features, opinion pieces, and investigative articles for some of the biggest publications in the country. He is currently working on his first book, Wildflowers of Florin, about the Japanese American incarceration camps of World War II. The book is based on Jake’s article “An American Tale,” which appeared in the December 2024 issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

Jake’s work has been cited in countless books, whitepapers, and court cases. His piece “Big (Brother) Pharma,” from The New Republic, was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court case Sorrell v. IMS Health, which examined the issue of data mining by pharmaceutical companies—Justice Stephen Breyer cited the piece in his dissent. That article has been cited in a number of Amicus Curiae briefs, as well. Several of Jake’s interviews with Guernica Magazine have been called “required reading” by the New York Times. In his political writing, Jake’s piece “How the Right Co-opted ‘Fake News’,” for The Daily Beast, was made a reading requirement in multiple college courses.

Jake is a native of the Bay Area now living in the NYC suburbs with his wife, Monika, a Montessori school teacher.