Benjamin Chertoff

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Benjamin Chertoff is a journalist and producer. He is most known for his work on the Popular Mechanics article 9/11: Debunking The Myths. He currently produces the AOL News tech show The Switched Show ^[1]. He has also edited PopularMechanics.com ^[2], and created the Popular Mechanics Show, the weekly podcast of Popular Mechanics magazine.^[3]

1 Biography
2 Disputed family background
3 Coverage
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Benjamin Chertoff is a magazine and video journalist. He began his career at the age of 19, working as an intern in the features department at Time Out New York Magazine -- including researching the magazine's Urban Legends story -- and later contributing to the features section. Along with freelancing for several national magazines, he then worked at Men's Journal. In 2003 he helped start the political non-profit Music for America. He moved to Popular Mechanics in September, 2004. There, he worked as the magazine's research editor, and helped to manage the reporting for magazine's March, 2005 9/11: Debunking The Myths story, as well as the magazine's coverage of the aftermath to Hurricane Katrina, and many other aviation, military and technology stories. He is currently the Online Editor of Popular Mechanics, and edits all the non-print outlets of Popular Mechanics Magazine.^[4]

The magazine's investigation of 9/11 conspiracy theories was the first of its kind. Chertoff has stated that the magazine's editors decided to investigate 9/11 Myths after seeing Jimmy Walter's full page ad in the New York Times for a book called Painful Questions.^[5] In a June, 2006 column in Scientific American magazine,^[6] Skeptics Society president Dr. Michael Shermer called the Popular Mechanics article "the single best debunking of this conspiratorial codswallop." In 2006, the magazine published the book Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to Hard Facts, which greatly expanded on the original story, including new myths and much more detail than could fit in the original, magazine article.

[edit] Disputed family background

Supporters of the conspiracy theories have claimed that 9/11: Debunking The Myths is "a propaganda piece" written by "a senior government official's cousin" because Chertoff bears the same last name as Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. However, Chertoff has repeatedly denied this claim, most notably in the September 11, 2006 issue of U.S. News & World Report, stating "no one in my family has ever met anyone related to Michael Chertoff".^[7] In an audio interview, he noted that any possible relationship would likely only be found back in "19th century Belarus. However Benjamin Chertoff's Mother, when asked about a possible relation, she said they "might be distant cousins."^[8]