Roger Friedman

Roger Friedman is an American journalist who runs the website, Showbiz411.com since 2009. Friedman's career started at Ballantine Books in the early 1980s as a book publicist, where he helped create bestsellers for baseball strategist Bill James, writer William Least Heat Moon {"Blue Highways") and famed chef Pierre Franey. He was director of publicity under Harold Evans at the Atlantic Monthly Press in the mid 1980s, where he helped publish Picasso's sketchbooks ("Je Suis Le Cahier") for the first time.

In 1987, Friedman helped create FAME Magazine, a monthly journal of arts and celebrities. His cover stories included those on Paul McCartney, Carly Simon, Paloma Picasso, and Whitney Houston. As articles editor, Friedman commissioned and edited work by writers such as David Halberstam, Harry Crews, Chet Flippo, John Lahr, Jeremy Gerard, Mary Gordon, Edna Buchanan, Gary Clarke, Regina Weinreich, Joyce Johnson, and Meg Wolitzer.

Friedman co- wrote the weekly "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid 1990s where he covered, among other things, the OJ Simpson trial. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Post, and Daily News, Vogue, and the New York Observer under editors Peter Kaplan and Joe Conason.

With Academy Award nominees D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, Friedman co-produced Only the Strong Survive, a 2002 documentary film about famed R&B musicians, in which he also appeared.[1] The film was shown in the Directors' Fortnight in parallel to the Cannes Film Festival.[2] The film was shown at the Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection of the Cannes and Telluride Film Festivals and released by Miramax in 2003. The soundtrack, issued on Koch Records, featured the movie's stars including Sam Moore, Jerry Butler, Mary Wilson, The Chi-Lites, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Ann Peebles, Wilson Pickett, and Isaac Hayes.

Friedman worked for Fox News as a full time writer and reporter for Foxnews.com from 1999 where he often appeared on Fox News TV programs and created the daily Fox411 column. He broke dozens of stories for a decade including many while covering Michael Jackson's 2003 arrest and 2005 trial.

In June 2009, Friedman settled a lawsuit with Fox News and News Corp after being dismissed without cause. He joined The Hollywood Reporter soon after. In 2010, he started his own entertainment website, Showbiz411.com.