Jon Entine
Encyclopedia
Jon Entine is an author, journalist, think tank scholar and business consultant. He is a founder/director of the Genetic Literacy Project, which is housed at STATS (Statistical Assessment Service
), where he is also a senior fellow. He has been a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C since 2002. He writes a column (since 2001) for the British-based international magazine Ethical Corporation and contributes widely to newspapers and magazines around the world. Entine is also the founder of E.S.G. MediaMetrics, which offers sustainability consulting in environmental, social and governance areas, and he advises organizations on brand reputation and strategic communications.
Entine is known for an independent and distinctive public identity, often taking contrarian or controversial stands but not strictly ideological ones. He is a speaker
at universities and civic organizations, and is a frequent guest on national news and political commentary television
and radio
shows in the United States
and Europe
. He lives in Cincinnati.
on April 30, 1952 and later relocated with his family to the suburb of Cheltenham. He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut
in 1974 with a B.A. in philosophy
. Entine had briefly dropped out of college in 1972 to run the presidential primary campaign for Senator George McGovern
in Sullivan County
in New Hampshire
. After graduation, he became the assistant director for the re-election campaign of Father Robert Drinan, a liberal Democratic Congressman from suburban Boston
.
owned-and-operated TV station then known as WCAU. During his freshman year of college, he edited and produced the 11 p.m. news for the local NBC
affiliate in West Hartford/New Britain. After the 1974 Congressional campaign, in January 1975, Entine was hired as a writer by the ABC News
program AM America
, which was renamed Good Morning America
the following year. Entine worked for ABC News
as a writer, assignment desk editor, and producer in New York City
and Chicago
from 1975-1983 for various ABC News
programs, including the ABC Evening News, 20/20 and Nightline. He took a leave of absence from ABC News
in 1981-1982 to study at the University of Michigan
under a National Endowment for the Humanities
fellowship in journalism.
Entine joined NBC News
in New York in 1984 as a special segment producer for NBC Nightly News
with Tom Brokaw
, where he worked until 1990. He became Brokaw’s long-time producer. In 1989, Entine and Brokaw collaborated to write and produce Black Athletes: Fact and Fiction, named Best International Sports Film of 1989. Entine was later named the executive in charge of documentaries at NBC News (1989–1990). He rejoined ABC News in 1991 as an investigative producer for Primetime (TV series)
. In 1993 Entine produced a story with reporter Sam Donaldson
on eye surgery clinics that led to a lawsuit against them and Primetime alleging trespass and defamation due to the use of "test patients". The case was mostly dismissed in January 1995 and a defamation suit was dismissed in 2000. He produced a prime time special on the Miss America Pageant, "Miss America: Beyond the Crown" for NBC Entertainment in 1994 before transitioning to book writing and print journalism.
and the Soviet Union
and a National Press Club award in Consumer Journalism.
Too Good to Be True?," in Business Ethics magazine, created an international brouhaha and led to hundreds of stories in the international media, including articles in The New York Times
and a report on ABC World News Tonight. The flurry of news stories led to a temporary 50% drop in the market value of the stock of The Body Shop, a British-based international cosmetics company, which until that point had been considered a model "socially responsible" company.
Entine reported that Anita Roddick
, founder of The Body Shop, in 1976, had stolen the name, store design, marketing concept and most product line ideas from a different cosmetic chain with the same name, The Body Shop, founded in 1970 in San Francisco by two California women, and subsequently fabricated her story of traveling around the world discovering exotic beauty ingredients. (In 1989, Roddick purchased the U.S. and Israeli rights to The Body Shop name from the original Body Shop founders, and the San Francisco based chain of five stores renamed itself Body Time). He reported that Roddick's "natural" products contained extensive amounts of artificial colorings, scents and preservatives. Despite Roddick's claims and unverified reports in popular articles and even some university case studies that Roddick and The Body Shop "gave most of its profits to charity," as Roddick had proclaimed, documents from Britain's Charity Commission
showed that the company gave nothing to charity over its first 11 years and was penurious in its philanthropy thereafter, despite Roddick's claims. The Body Shop also faced millions of dollars in claims by disenchanted franchisees, who believed they had been enticed to buy franchises by misrepresenting its potential revenue.
About The Body Shop Story from Encyclopedia of Leadership, Volume 4 http://books.google.com/books?id=kjLspnsZS4UC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=the+body+shop+Peggy+Short+and+Jane+Saunders&source=bl&ots=maJTWpOSq2&sig=KqsCAdlWfArW1bMZsxXcbq1F44g&hl=en&ei=if-KSp78CdWZkQXlqpkx&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Article in the Berkeley Daily about Body Time (The original Body Shop) http://www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2004-02-03/article/18201?headline=Made-In-Berkeley-Berkeley-s-Body-Time-the-Original-Body-Shop
How The Body Shop tried to stop this information from getting mainstream:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/besieged-body-shop-comes-out-fighting-1379187.html
The article in Business Ethics (now defunct), which was cited with a National Press Club Award for Consumer Journalism in 1994, is widely used in university business ethics classes and is generally credited with prompting companies claiming to be socially responsible to match their claims with operational practices and to increase transparency.
"Shattered Image" had originally been scheduled to be published as a 10,000 word feature in Vanity Fair
earlier in 1994 but was dropped after legal threats by The Body Shop, which threatened to litigate under British libel law, which requires proof of innocence by defendants rather than proof of guilt by the prosecution. The original article was eventually published in 2004 by The Nation
Books in Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot to Print, edited by David Wallis. Business Ethics, which had featured Roddick on its cover just the year before, printed a much shorter version of the exposé commissioned for Vanity Fair. "Shattered Image" and subsequent writings by Entine on the emerging "socially responsible" business movement challenged the belief that companies that promote themselves as socially conscious necessarily operate with a higher degree of ethics or social responsibility than conventional companies. Entine's writing focused on what he called "reality rather than rhetoric." He is often credited for coining the term "green washing" in reference to the marketing exploits of self-professed "green" companies.
and numerous other publications. There were some critical reviews, claiming that the subject was inappropriate as it could encourage a racialist view of human relations.
In 2007, Entine published Abraham's Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People, which examined the shared ancestry of Jews, Christians and Muslims, and addressed the question "Who is a Jew?" as seen through the prism of DNA. Harry Ostrer
in Nature Genetics
said that "His understanding of the genetics is limited and uncritical, but his broad, well-documented sweep of Jewish history will inform even the most knowledgeable of readers". In the book, he reviews the controversial issue of why Jews are disproportionately successful, reviews studies that show that Ashkenazi Jews
test out to have a higher IQ on average than many other population groups
, and states that IQ is mostly heritable.
In 2011, Entine founded and became the founding director of the Genetic Literacy Project. The GLP, housed at STATS at George Mason University, focuses on the nexus of genetics--both human and agricultural--with the media and public policy.
Statistical Assessment Service
Statistical Assessment Service is a non-profit educational organization, based in Washington, DC, which analyzes and critiques the presentation of scientific findings and statistical evidence in the news media.-Overview:...
), where he is also a senior fellow. He has been a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C since 2002. He writes a column (since 2001) for the British-based international magazine Ethical Corporation and contributes widely to newspapers and magazines around the world. Entine is also the founder of E.S.G. MediaMetrics, which offers sustainability consulting in environmental, social and governance areas, and he advises organizations on brand reputation and strategic communications.
Entine is known for an independent and distinctive public identity, often taking contrarian or controversial stands but not strictly ideological ones. He is a speaker
Public speaking
Public speaking is the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence, or entertain the listeners...
at universities and civic organizations, and is a frequent guest on national news and political commentary television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
shows in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. He lives in Cincinnati.
Biography
Entine was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
on April 30, 1952 and later relocated with his family to the suburb of Cheltenham. He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
in 1974 with a B.A. in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. Entine had briefly dropped out of college in 1972 to run the presidential primary campaign for Senator George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
in Sullivan County
Sullivan County, New Hampshire
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 40,458 people, 16,530 households, and 11,174 families residing in the county. The population density was 29/; . There were 20,158 housing units at an average density of 38 per square mile...
in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
. After graduation, he became the assistant director for the re-election campaign of Father Robert Drinan, a liberal Democratic Congressman from suburban Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
.
Television journalism
Entine began his journalism career in high school, when he worked as a weekend copyboy for the CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
owned-and-operated TV station then known as WCAU. During his freshman year of college, he edited and produced the 11 p.m. news for the local NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
affiliate in West Hartford/New Britain. After the 1974 Congressional campaign, in January 1975, Entine was hired as a writer by the ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
program AM America
AM America
AM America was a morning news program produced by ABC in an attempt to compete with the highly rated Today on NBC. The show never found an audience after its premiere on January 6, 1975...
, which was renamed Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
the following year. Entine worked for ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
as a writer, assignment desk editor, and producer in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
from 1975-1983 for various ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
programs, including the ABC Evening News, 20/20 and Nightline. He took a leave of absence from ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
in 1981-1982 to study at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
under a National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
fellowship in journalism.
Entine joined NBC News
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
in New York in 1984 as a special segment producer for NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...
with Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
, where he worked until 1990. He became Brokaw’s long-time producer. In 1989, Entine and Brokaw collaborated to write and produce Black Athletes: Fact and Fiction, named Best International Sports Film of 1989. Entine was later named the executive in charge of documentaries at NBC News (1989–1990). He rejoined ABC News in 1991 as an investigative producer for Primetime (TV series)
Primetime (TV series)
Primetime is an American news magazine show which debuted on ABC in 1989 with co-hosts Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer and originally had the title Primetime Live.-Early history:...
. In 1993 Entine produced a story with reporter Sam Donaldson
Sam Donaldson
Samuel Andrew "Sam" Donaldson, Jr. is a reporter and news anchor, serving with ABC News from 1967 to the present, best known as the network's White House Correspondent and as a panelist and later co-anchor of the network's Sunday Program "This Week."-Early life and career:Donaldson was born in El...
on eye surgery clinics that led to a lawsuit against them and Primetime alleging trespass and defamation due to the use of "test patients". The case was mostly dismissed in January 1995 and a defamation suit was dismissed in 2000. He produced a prime time special on the Miss America Pageant, "Miss America: Beyond the Crown" for NBC Entertainment in 1994 before transitioning to book writing and print journalism.
Awards
Entine has won 19 journalism awards, including Emmys for specials on the reform movements in ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and a National Press Club award in Consumer Journalism.
The Body Shop Controversy
Entine's first print piece, the September 1994 investigative article, "Shattered Image: Is The Body ShopThe Body Shop
The Body Shop International plc, known as The Body Shop, has 2,400 stores in 61 countries, and is the second largest cosmetic franchise in the world, following O Boticario, a Brazilian company...
Too Good to Be True?," in Business Ethics magazine, created an international brouhaha and led to hundreds of stories in the international media, including articles in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and a report on ABC World News Tonight. The flurry of news stories led to a temporary 50% drop in the market value of the stock of The Body Shop, a British-based international cosmetics company, which until that point had been considered a model "socially responsible" company.
Entine reported that Anita Roddick
Anita Roddick
Dame Anita Roddick, DBE was a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner, best known as the founder of The Body Shop, a cosmetics company producing and retailing beauty products that shaped ethical consumerism...
, founder of The Body Shop, in 1976, had stolen the name, store design, marketing concept and most product line ideas from a different cosmetic chain with the same name, The Body Shop, founded in 1970 in San Francisco by two California women, and subsequently fabricated her story of traveling around the world discovering exotic beauty ingredients. (In 1989, Roddick purchased the U.S. and Israeli rights to The Body Shop name from the original Body Shop founders, and the San Francisco based chain of five stores renamed itself Body Time). He reported that Roddick's "natural" products contained extensive amounts of artificial colorings, scents and preservatives. Despite Roddick's claims and unverified reports in popular articles and even some university case studies that Roddick and The Body Shop "gave most of its profits to charity," as Roddick had proclaimed, documents from Britain's Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
showed that the company gave nothing to charity over its first 11 years and was penurious in its philanthropy thereafter, despite Roddick's claims. The Body Shop also faced millions of dollars in claims by disenchanted franchisees, who believed they had been enticed to buy franchises by misrepresenting its potential revenue.
About The Body Shop Story from Encyclopedia of Leadership, Volume 4 http://books.google.com/books?id=kjLspnsZS4UC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=the+body+shop+Peggy+Short+and+Jane+Saunders&source=bl&ots=maJTWpOSq2&sig=KqsCAdlWfArW1bMZsxXcbq1F44g&hl=en&ei=if-KSp78CdWZkQXlqpkx&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Article in the Berkeley Daily about Body Time (The original Body Shop) http://www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2004-02-03/article/18201?headline=Made-In-Berkeley-Berkeley-s-Body-Time-the-Original-Body-Shop
How The Body Shop tried to stop this information from getting mainstream:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/besieged-body-shop-comes-out-fighting-1379187.html
The article in Business Ethics (now defunct), which was cited with a National Press Club Award for Consumer Journalism in 1994, is widely used in university business ethics classes and is generally credited with prompting companies claiming to be socially responsible to match their claims with operational practices and to increase transparency.
"Shattered Image" had originally been scheduled to be published as a 10,000 word feature in Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
earlier in 1994 but was dropped after legal threats by The Body Shop, which threatened to litigate under British libel law, which requires proof of innocence by defendants rather than proof of guilt by the prosecution. The original article was eventually published in 2004 by The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
Books in Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot to Print, edited by David Wallis. Business Ethics, which had featured Roddick on its cover just the year before, printed a much shorter version of the exposé commissioned for Vanity Fair. "Shattered Image" and subsequent writings by Entine on the emerging "socially responsible" business movement challenged the belief that companies that promote themselves as socially conscious necessarily operate with a higher degree of ethics or social responsibility than conventional companies. Entine's writing focused on what he called "reality rather than rhetoric." He is often credited for coining the term "green washing" in reference to the marketing exploits of self-professed "green" companies.
Genetics
Entine's first book, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It was inspired by the documentary on black athletes written with Brokaw in 1989. It was favorably reviewed by The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and numerous other publications. There were some critical reviews, claiming that the subject was inappropriate as it could encourage a racialist view of human relations.
In 2007, Entine published Abraham's Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People, which examined the shared ancestry of Jews, Christians and Muslims, and addressed the question "Who is a Jew?" as seen through the prism of DNA. Harry Ostrer
Harry Ostrer
Dr. Harry Ostrer is a geneticist known for his study, writings, and lectures about the origins of the Jewish people. He is a Professor of Pathology and Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University and Director of Genetic and Genomic Testing at Montefiore Medical Center...
in Nature Genetics
Nature Genetics
Nature Genetics is a scientific journal concerning genetics. It is published by Nature Publishing Group, and was founded as part of the Nature family of journal in 1992. The 2010 impact factor is 36.377. Its sister journal is Nature Reviews Genetics.- External links :*...
said that "His understanding of the genetics is limited and uncritical, but his broad, well-documented sweep of Jewish history will inform even the most knowledgeable of readers". In the book, he reviews the controversial issue of why Jews are disproportionately successful, reviews studies that show that Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
test out to have a higher IQ on average than many other population groups
Ashkenazi intelligence
Whether Ashkenazi Jews have higher intelligence than other ethnic groups has been an occasional subject of scientific controversy. The 2005 paper "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence" by Cochran, Hardy, and Harpending, argued on the basis of inherited diseases and the peculiar economic...
, and states that IQ is mostly heritable.
In 2011, Entine founded and became the founding director of the Genetic Literacy Project. The GLP, housed at STATS at George Mason University, focuses on the nexus of genetics--both human and agricultural--with the media and public policy.
Think Tank Affiliations
Entine joined the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research as an adjunct scholar in 2002, and is now a visiting scholar. His research focuses on science and society and corporate responsibility/sustainability. AEI Press has published three books written and edited by Entine: Crop Chemophobia: Will Precaution Kill the Green Revolution? (February 2011), which analyzes the impact of chemicals in agriculture; Pension Fund Politics: The Dangers of Socially Responsible Investing (2005) on the growing influence of social investing in pension funds and Let Them Eat Precaution: How Politics Is Undermining the Genetic Revolution in Agriculture (January 2006), which examined the debate over genetic modification (GMOs), food, and farming. He has also contributed to numerous academic books on a variety of subjects, including sports, genetics, leadership, and sustainability. In 2010, Entine joined the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) as a senior fellow at George Mason University.Books
- Crop Chemophobia: Will Precaution Kill the Green Revolution? 2011, ISBN 9780844743615
- Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health, 2011, ISBN 9780578075617
- No Crime But Prejudice: Fischer Homes, the Immigration Fiasco, and Extrajudicial Prosecution, 2009, ISBN 9780692002827
- Abraham's Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People, 2008, ISBN 0446580635
- Let Them Eat Precaution: How Politics is Undermining the Genetic Revolution, 2006, ISBN 0844742007
- Pension Fund Politics: The Dangers of Socially Responsible Investing, 2005, ISBN 084474218X
- Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It, 2001, ISBN 158648026X