John Sack's devotion to accuracy and fairness places his writings among the best examples of the ability of literary journalism to capture truth. Working within a school of reporting often criticized for its use of literary license, Sack, one of New Journalism's pioneers, has built a career on accuracy. His stories are as vivid and compelling as those of others using that style, and yet, despite the assumptions of some critics, he has made it his practice not to fictionalize. In a half century of writing books and writing for magazines, newspapers, radio, and television, often on extremely controversial topics, none of the more than one thousand people whom Sack has written about have reported to him a serious error or distortion of fact.

John Sack was born 24 March 1930 in New York City to John Jacob and Tracy Rose (Levy) Sack. At fifteen he began reporting as a...