Mayer began her career as a journalist in
Vermont writing for two small weekly papers,
The Weathersfield Weekly and
The Black River Tribune, before moving to the daily
Rutland Herald. She worked as a metropolitan reporter for the now-defunct
Washington Star, and in 1982 joined
The Wall Street Journal, where she worked for 12 years. She was the first woman at the
WSJ to be named
White House correspondent, and subsequently, senior writer and front page editor. She served as a
war correspondent and
foreign correspondent for the
Journal, where she reported on the
bombing of the American barracks in
Beirut, the
Persian Gulf War, the fall of the
Berlin Wall, and the last days of
Communism in the former
Soviet Union. Mayer also contributes to the
New York Review of Books,
The Washington Post, the
Los Angeles Times, and the
American Prospect. Mayer has co-authored two books:
Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas (1994) (co-authored with
Jill Abramson), a study of the nomination and appointment of
Clarence Thomas to the
U.S. Supreme Court; and
Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984–1988 (1989; co-authored with
Doyle McManus), an account of
Ronald Reagan's second term in the
White House.
Strange Justice was adapted as a 1999
Showtime television movie of the same name, starring
Delroy Lindo,
Mandy Patinkin, and
Regina Taylor.
Strange Justice was a finalist for the 1994
National Book Award for Nonfiction, and both books were finalists for the
National Book Critics Circle Award.
Time magazine said of
Strange Justice: "Its portrait of Thomas as an id suffering in the role of a Republican
superego is more detailed and convincing than anything that has appeared so far." Of
Landslide,
The New York Times Washington correspondent
Steven V. Roberts said, "This is clearly a reporter's book, full of rich anecdote and telling detail.... I am impressed with the amount of inside information collected here." In an
Elle magazine interview, Mayer said about her next article, "I'm focusing broadly on stories about abuses of power, threats to democracy, and corruption."
The Dark Side Mayer's third nonfiction book,
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (2008), addresses the origins, legal justifications, and possible war crimes liability of the use of
enhanced interrogation techniques (commonly considered torture) on detainees and the subsequent deaths of detainees, sometimes victims of mistaken identity, under such interrogation by the
CIA and
DOD. The roles of
Dick Cheney and attorneys
David Addington and
John Yoo in providing cover for the grisly procedures were prominent. The book was a finalist for the
National Book Awards. In her
New York Times review of
The Dark Side, Jennifer Schuessler described the book as "the most vivid and comprehensive account we have so far of how a government founded on checks and balances and respect for individual rights could have been turned against those ideals." The
Times subsequently named
The Dark Side one of its
ten most notable books of the year. Military and diplomatic historian Colonel
Andrew J. Bacevich, reviewing the book in
The Washington Post, wrote: "[Mayer's] achievement lies less in bringing new revelations to light than in weaving into a comprehensive narrative a story revealed elsewhere in bits and pieces."
Washington Post reporter
Joby Warrick reported that Mayer's book revealed that a
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst warned the
Bush administration that "up to a third of the detainees at
Guantanamo Bay may have been imprisoned by mistake." The administration ignored the warning and insisted that all were
enemy combatants. In a story appearing the same day in
The New York Times, reporter
Scott Shane reported Mayer's book as disclosing
International Committee of the Red Cross officials had concluded in a secret report in 2007: "the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes." Mayer said of her book: "I see myself more as a reporter than as an advocate."
Civil liberties Mayer covered the
Obama administration's prosecution of whistleblowers with an article about former
National Security Agency (NSA) official
Thomas Drake. Mayer wrote that despite Obama's campaign promises of transparency, his administration "has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness." She won the
Polk Award for the article, and the judges said her article helped expose "prosecutorial excess" and "helped lead to all major charges against Drake being dropped."
Drones In 2009, Mayer covered the Obama administration's use of drones. "The number of drone strikes has risen dramatically since Obama became President", she wrote. Her article described errors, ethical concerns, and potential unintended consequences in the increased use of drone strikes.
Money in politics Mayer has written about money in politics for many years, covering and criticizing both liberals and conservatives. In 1997, she wrote an article about "dubious
Democratic Party fundraising tactics leading to the 1996 election." The article described how the Clinton campaign "marketed the prestige and glamour of the Presidency as never before." In 2004, she wrote an article on
George Soros and other activist billionaires who sought "to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush in the 2004 election." The article described Soros's "extreme measures" and how his "outsized financial role in the election" had "stirred alarm". In 2010, Mayer published an article about the
political activities of the Koch brothers, describing their "war against Obama" and funding of the
Tea Party and nonprofit organizations that sought to block liberal policy proposals and defeat Democratic candidates. The article was a finalist for the 2011
National Magazine Awards. In 2011, Mayer reported on retail sales millionaire
Art Pope's dominant spending in
North Carolina politics. It documented his extraordinarily successful efforts as a
Koch brothers ally, who held seats on the boards of their
Americans for Prosperity and
Citizens for a Sound Economy organizations, to target both Democrats and moderate Republican state legislators. It predicted the redistricting-generated loss of Democratic congressional delegation seats. Her article won a Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, and the judges called it "the kind of journalism that strengthens democracy and shows the value of a free press."
Mark Bauerlein, writing in the
Chronicle of Higher Education, was critical of the piece, saying the article was "a tendentious, poorly-researched, and weakly argued bit of journalism" and that "Pope never gets a fair shake." In response to criticism, Mayer supplemented her article with a blog entry pointing out that, despite Pope's claims that he was "not an heir", his "political career was launched" by more than $300,000 from his parents. In 2012, Mayer wrote an article about President Obama's efforts to raise money from liberal billionaires and his campaign's decision to flip-flop and encourage fundraising from
super PACs. Following the 2016 election cycle, Mayer covered the exertion of the considerable influence of former Democratic strategist and pollster
Patrick Caddell, in his capacity as advisor to reclusive contributor
Robert Mercer for
The New Yorker. Hedge fund director Mercer, joined in his efforts by his daughter
Rebekah, has been an increasingly important source of substantial funding for right-wing campaigns, including the successful candidacy of
Donald Trump.
Dark Money In 2016, Doubleday published Mayer's fourth book,
Dark Money, which became an instant national best-seller.
The New York Times named it one of the year's ten best books.
The New York Review of Books described it as "absolutely necessary reading for anyone who wants to make sense of our politics", and
Esquire called Mayer "quite simply one of the very few, utterly invaluable journalists this country has". In interviews about her book, Mayer said approximately six investigators, led by former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir, had been hired by the industrialist
Koch brothers in an effort to try to dig up dirt in order to smear her reputation, as well as accusations of plagiarism being leveled against her. She responded by publicly airing those intimidation tactics, effectively debunking the smear campaign.
Dark Money won the 2017 Helen Bernstein Award, and was a finalist for the PEN
Jean Stein Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize.
Eric Schneiderman resignation On May 7, 2018, within hours of publication of an article Mayer co-wrote with
Ronan Farrow in
The New Yorker, New York State Attorney General
Eric Schneiderman resigned, effective May 8, 2018. During his term in office, he had been accused of physical abuse by at least four women with whom he had been romantically involved and habitually abusing alcohol and prescription drugs. Mayer and Farrow had reported that they had confirmed the women's allegations both with photographs of contusions, as well as with statements from friends with whom the alleged victims had confided subsequent to the claimed assaults. Governor
Andrew Cuomo assigned a special prosecutor to investigate the filing of possible criminal charges against Schneiderman.
Appearances Mayer has appeared as a guest on the
Charlie Rose Show, as well as on the
Late Show with David Letterman. She was also a guest on the
Bill Moyers Journal show on
PBS in 2008, and appeared as a guest on
PBS Tavis Smiley show on August 7, 2008, to discuss her book
The Dark Side, which had just made
The New York Times Best Seller list. She appeared as a guest on
Comedy Central's
The Colbert Report on August 12, 2008. On January 26, 2009, Mayer was interviewed at the
Yale Law School Law and Media lecture series by
Linda Greenhouse, Distinguished Journalist in Residence, and
Emily Bazelon, Truman Capote Fellow in Creative Writing. In October 2008, Mayer participated in a panel discussion of journalists at the
Nieman Foundation for Journalism at
Harvard University, devoted to the media's coverage of the
Iraq War. That same month Mayer participated as a panelist in a discussion of the same subject at the
Newseum in
Washington, D.C. Although not a personal appearance by Mayer, the FOX show
24 had a minor character in its seventh season named Blaine Mayer. The character was named after Jane Mayer, who wrote, ""Well, there's kind of a balancing sensation. The elevation to the U.S. Senate is a nice start to the year, but the sex change is a bit disappointing, since if I have to be male, I was hoping for a younger, more fit body, and a better head of hair. It does however fulfill one of my greatest fantasies, which is that I have long had subpoena envy." Mayer has appeared frequently on
Free Speech TV's
Democracy Now! program. On February 17, 2016, she was interviewed by
American University journalism professor
Charles Lewis, the founder of the
Center for Public Integrity, at a public discussion of her career and
Dark Money that was broadcast on
C-SPAN. ==Awards and honors==