Philip Nobile
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philip Nobile (born 1941 or 1942)[1] is an American freelance writer, journalist, historian, teacher, and social critic/commentator. He has written or edited several books, published investigative journalism in leading newspapers and journals, and taught at the Cobble Hill School of American Studies, a public school in Brooklyn.
Journalism career
During his journalism career, Nobile has written for New York Press, New York Magazine, The Village Voice,[2] The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, Penthouse,[3] Spin, Spy Magazine, Esquire, Newsday, The Weekly Standard,[4] and The New York Post[5] among other publications. He wrote on the idea of "positive incest" in a 1977 article on Warren Farrell in Penthouse that questioned the incest taboo.[6] He was an editor, along with Eric Nadler, of Penthouse Forum.[7][8] In addition, he is a regular contributor to the online History News Network. As a "muckraking" investigative journalist and media analyst, Nobile has generated controversy by his criticisms of a variety of public figures, including sexologist Shere Hite,[9] talk radio host Don Imus, historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, and President Harry S. Truman.[10]
In 1982, he wrote in Penthouse Forum of penis size research. He argued that data from Kinsey Institute studies showed that black penises were longer than white penises. This was based on a sample of 2,376 "white college men", 143 "non-white college men" and 59 "black college men".[11] In 1984 he was sued by Shere Hite for his Penthouse Forum editorial that said that she should be driven "out of the erogenous zones". The $15 million case was settled out of court, but Nobile did not issue an apology or retraction.[9] In 1990 he debated Judith Reisman on the work of Alfred Kinsey in an appearance on The Phil Donahue Show, where his writing on "positive incest" arose.[8]
In 1990, he reported in The Village Voice what was described as a "key story"[12] of a former altar boy's sexual relationship with the Rev. Bruce Ritter of Covenant House.[2] This was one of the earliest reported cases of sexual abuse among religious in institutional settings.[12] The cases went unprosecuted because of the five-year statute of limitations at the time for sexual abuse.
In 1993, after the death of author Alex Haley, Nobile criticized his noted novel, Roots (1976), in an article in The Village Voice, calling it a "hoax" and suggesting his Pulitzer Prize should be rescinded.[13] Clarence Page responded in the Chicago Tribune that Nobile was missing the point of the effect of Haley's work and noted that the author had always said parts were fiction. Page wrote:
"I think he [Nobile] missed the larger, more important truth. If Roots was a hoax, it was a hoax Americans wanted desperately to believe, which says something more important about Americans than anything Nobile says about Haley."[14]
Nobile's 2013 New York Post article asserted that President John Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy had sex on Air Force One on the day before his assassination. He based this report on a conversation he had with Kennedy biographer William Manchester, who did not want to be revealed as the source while he was alive. Nobile claimed that Jackie Kennedy Onassis suppressed publication of his book on the president's "Don Juanism" while she was an editor at Doubleday.[5]
