Chronicling Wealth And Power In The Public Interest
Forbes has been tracking the planet's billionaires for four decades, a duty we take seriously: Roughly 100 reporters worked on this 39th annual Billionaires issue, our yearly snapshot of the world's wealthiest.
Chase Peterson-Withorn
'It's an army of financial sleuths,' says Senior Editor Chase Peterson-Withorn, who led the effort. 'They scour hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, consult tens of thousands of sources and interview, or try to, thousands of billionaires themselves.' Key lieutenants in this officer corps include Grace Chung, who coordinates with a dozen of our global editions plus two dozen non-U.S. reporters; Naazneen Karmali, who oversees our efforts in Asia; and Matt Durot, a former accountant who outfits each soldier with green eyeshades rather than fatigues.
Their work serves a greater purpose. In breaking down these fortunes, the team offers thousands of success roadmaps for the rest of us to follow. Meanwhile, transparency about who owns what in the world provides accountability, especially as Silicon Valley ponders a D.C. merger and places like Russia, Turkey and China generate wealth creation with far less local visibility.
As a global brand rooted in openness—of markets and minds—we're always keen to support the gathering of trusted information, and to protect those who seek it. Six years ago I founded the One Free Press Coalition, which brings together the most influential news organizations in the world to stand up for journalists under attack for pursuing the truth.
We've built an umbrella encompassing Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, Bloomberg and dozens more. Once a year these rivals band together to showcase the ten most urgent cases of press persecution worldwide, launching the list on World Press Freedom Day in May.
As with chronicling the world's richest, transparency here serves the public interest. We've heard from so many of these reporters, who sat alone in jail cells for the crime of asking questions of their government officials, about the security they feel knowing the world is watching over them. Whichever list you survey, you'll find inspiration in every name.
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