Stephen Bates

Stephen Bates graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and magna cum laude from Harvard University. He is an associate professor at UNLV.

Bates's books include If No News, Send Rumors: Anecdotes of American Journalism; The Spot: The Rise of Political Advertising on Television (with Edwin Diamond); Battleground: One Mother's Crusade, the Religious Right, and the Struggle for Control of Our Classrooms; and An Aristocracy of Critics: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee That Redefined Freedom of the Press, winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize for 2021.

He was Literary Editor of the Wilson Quarterly from 1997 to 2006, and has published articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and numerous other publications.

A former board member of the ACLU of Nevada, he is a member of the advisory board of the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV.

In 1995, he was appointed Associate Independent Counsel to the Office of Independent Counsel, where he wrote "The Starr Report," which Charlotte Hays selected as The Washington Post's number one best book of 1998: "A real page turner, 'The Starr Report' has everything: hubris, betrayal, a fascinating cast of characters, an interesting setting, high-stakes intrigue and an astounding story line about a man who risks so much for so little. I loved author Stephen Bates's wry and understated use of subtitles ...and found the writing in 'The Starr Report' quite novelistic. For my money, the best scandal book of 1998, hands down."

AN ARISTOCRACY OF CRITICS: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee That Redefined Freedom of the Press (Yale University Press, 2020)

BATTLEGROUND: One Mother's Crusade, the Religious Right, and the Struggle for Control of Our Classrooms (Simon & Schuster, 1993)