Joel Stein

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Joel Stein at Beverly Hills High School for "Career Day", May 16, 2006.

Joel Stein (born 23 July 1971) is an American journalist. He is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a regular contributor to TIME.

Stein grew up in Edison, New Jersey and attended J.P. Stevens High School, where he wrote for and edited Hawkeye, the student paper. He majored in English at Stanford and wrote a weekly column for The Stanford Daily. He graduated in 1993 with a BA and an MA and moved to New York. Stein's career began as a writer and researcher for Martha Stewart Living. He worked a year for Stewart and would later quip that she had fired him twice in the same day. He did fact-checking at various publications before becoming sports editor and columnist for Time Out New York, where he stayed for two years. While working at Time Out New York, he was a contestant on MTV's short lived game show Idiot Savants where he ended up in the Dunce Corner three days in a row, before coming back on Day 4 to go all the way to the Grand Savant Round and win in his chosen Savant category, Taxi. Stein joined TIME in August 1997. He gained notice for his arch celebrity Q&As and for his anecdotal humor columns. His 1998 cover story on Michael Jordan was a bestseller. In 2000 he contacted singer-songwriter and composer Joel Steinand covered their phone conversation in a humorous TIME article.

He can sometimes be seen as a talking head on television programs such as I Love the 80s. He also co-produced three TV pilots, an animated series for VH-1, and two for ABC. The animated show, titled Hey Joel, aired only in Canada while the other two were never picked up.

Stein taught a humor writing class at Princeton before moving to Los Angeles in early 2005 to write for the L.A. Times.

[edit] Controversial editorial

On January 24, 2006, the Los Angeles Times published a column by Stein under the headline "Warriors and Wusses" in which he wrote that it is a cop-out to oppose a war and yet claim to support the soldiers fighting it. "I don’t support our troops....When you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you’re not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you’re willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism..." He prefaced his argument by stating that he does not support the troops in Iraq, in keeping with his views on the war. There was an immediate response—notably, Stein was the same day invited on The Hugh Hewitt Show, a conservative talk radio program that broadcasts from Los Angeles. Hewitt asked Stein questions about the breadth of his relationships and experiences with people in the military, his views on recent deployments, and how he acknowledges those on active duty—and also one who died on active duty.

Stein conceded a lack of personal relationships or interactions with military servicemen and women. Concerning Afghanistan, Stein indicated mixed feelings towards sending troops there and eventually expressed doubt that invading the country had made Americans safer. As for other troop deployments, Stein acknowledged recent humanitarian interventions as being generally agreeable but expressed disapproval towards actions he felt station troops as a "police force." Stein stated that he honors the service of those who defend his country, but reiterated his view that he does not support troops in a military action he does not believe in, indicating that consenting to their involvement might only prolong their stay. He expressed sympathy for a U.S. Marine, cited by Hewitt, who died in Fallujah in 2004 and admiration for his bravery, but held that he felt there no purpose for his death. Concluding the talk, Hewitt asked if he would do it "over again", that is, write the column, and Stein said he would. Stein's Times column and subsequent chat with Hewitt were discussed nationally on talk radio and blogs .