Michael Finkel
 is an American journalist and memoirist.
Finkel wrote for The New York Times until 2002, when he was discovered to have created composite characters for a story he had written on the African slave trade,[1] and was fired.[2]
Finkel learned that Christian Longo man who had murdered his own wife and three children in December 2001, had used "Michael Finkel" as an alias during his several weeks as a fugitive. After Longo's capture the next month, Finkel communicated with him. Finkel says that, before the trial, Longo had hoped that the journalist would bring out "the real story" to help him win acquittal; after conviction, the convict gave Finkel interviews admitting his guilt. Finkel wrote a memoir on the relationship, True Story. A film adaptation was released in April 2015, starring Jonah Hill as Finkel and James Franco as Longo.
In 2008, Finkel and photographer John Stanmeyer won the National Magazine Awardfor photojournalism[3] for "Bedlam in the Blood: Malaria",[4] published in the July 2007[5] National Geographic.