A native of California, Jim Newton spent 25 years as a reporter, editor, bureau chief, columnist and editorial page editor and editor-at-large at the Los Angeles Times. During his time there, he received numerous awards and played an important role in two staff efforts, coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and 1994 Northridge earthquake, that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

He now teaches at UCLA, where he founded Blueprint magazine in 2015 and is its editor-in-chief. He is the author of four works of American biography and history: Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (Riverhead, 2006); Eisenhower: The White House Years (Doubleday, 2011); in collaboration with former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (Penguin Press, 2014); and, Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown (Little, Brown, 2020).