Mark Bowden

He has taught journalism and creative writing at Loyola University Maryland, and was Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Delaware from 2013–2017.

From June 2012 through March 2013, the legal blog Trials & Tribulations (T&T), which reports on California trials and legal affairs, ran a seven-part series titled "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus". This series disputes elements of Bowden's July 2012 Vanity Fair article, "A Case So Cold It Was Blue". The author suggests that Bowden may have created quotes and states of mind of principals to fit his story, and questions whether the journalist had conducted relevant interviews or attended a single day of the murder trial of former LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus, although this case was the centerpiece of his story.

Part VI of the series, published on T&T in October 2012, noted that Cullen Murphy, Bowden's editor at Vanity Fair, declined to comment on the record to the blog's author about the allegations related to Bowden's article. Part VII, published in March 2013, said that Bowden, who was not approached about the blog's allegations prior to their posting, had since declined to respond to questions posed by the website's blogger regarding his article. He has said that he welcomes questions about it from others.

Bowden believes that young people are just as drawn to "deep" journalism as other generations of people have been. He said in March 2009: "Nothing will ever replace language as the medium of thought, so nothing will replace the well-written, originally-reported story, or the well-reasoned essay."

In the October 2003 issue of The Atlantic, Bowden's article "The Dark Art of Interrogation" advocated a ban on all forms of coercive interrogation. He said that in certain rare instances, interrogators would be morally justified in breaking the law and they ought to face the consequences. Written more than a year before the violations of prisoners were revealed at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers, he wrote, in part:

He is also known for Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001) about the efforts to take Pablo Escobar, a Colombian drug lord.

From 1979 to 2003, Bowden was a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. In that role he researched and wrote Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo, both of which appeared as lengthy serials in the newspaper before being published as books. He published two books prior to these, Doctor Dealer and Bringing the Heat, both of which were based on reporting he originally did for the newspaper. He has since published nine other books.

Mark Robert Bowden (born July 17, 1951) is an American journalist and writer. He is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He is best known for his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999) about the 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, Somalia. It was adapted as a motion picture of the same name that received two Academy Awards.

Born in 1951 in St. Louis, Missouri; Bowden is a 1973 graduate of Loyola University Maryland. While he was at college, he was inspired to embark on a career in journalism by reading Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.