Joe Conason is national correspondent for The New York Observer, where he writes a weekly column distributed by Creators Syndicate. He is also a blogger for Salon.com, and editor of The Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute. His books Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, and The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, with Gene Lyons, were both national bestsellers; his latest book, It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush, was released in February 2007. His writing and reporting have appeared in many publications, including Harpers, The Guardian, The Nation, and The New Republic. He also appears frequently on television and radio. He lives with his wife and children in New York City.

Wayne Barrett is an investigative reporter, senior editor and blogger at the Village Voice, where he's been covering politics for nearly 30 years. He is the author of, among others, Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy and 9/11and Trump: The Deals and the Downfall, and co-author with Jack Newfield of City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York. He was awarded the 1990 Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Alumni Award as well as numerous other journalism prizes.