Richard A. Fineberg

{{Short description|American journalist (1941–2024)}}

Richard A. Fineberg (1941–2024) was an independent investigative journalist in Alaska specializing in issues related to petroleum development. As a PhD student at Claremont Graduate School in 1968, he conducted research on the Delano grape strike, ascertaining that grape growers were substituting immigrant and other impoverished labourers for workers who had joined the strike.{{cite report|last=Salandini|first=Victor|year=1972|chapter-url=https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED118324.pdf|chapter=Breakthrough in Coachella Valley|title=Farmworkers in Rural America, 1971–1972, Part 3B, Land Ownership, Use, and Distribution|publisher=Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare|pages=1441–1443: 1442}} In 1971, shortly before leaving his post as a political science professor at the University of Alaska Juneau, he joined the Phyllis Cormack expedition by Greenpeace to protest nuclear weapons testing on Amchitka Island. He later said that he viewed testing so close to the border of the Soviet Union as an act of aggression.{{cite news|date=November 29, 2009|title=Richard Fineberg|newspaper=The Province|url=https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-province/20091129/284082022689136|access-date=July 15, 2019}} Subsequently, he became a senior advisor to the Governor of Alaska on oil and gas policy, and consulted for government agencies at the state and federal level.Biography in {{cite book|title=The Future of Oil: Hearing Before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming|year=2010|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gv9aVUCGPgwC|page=213|isbn=978-0-16-087156-6 }}

Born on Sept. 9, 1941, in St. Louis, Missouri, he graduated from Beloit College in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree.{{Cite news |last=Sandomir |first=Richard |date=November 1, 2024 |title=Richard A. Fineberg, Relentless Skeptic of Alaska Pipeline, Dies at 83 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/01/climate/richard-a-fineberg-dead.html |work=The New York Times}} Fineberg died on September 27, 2024, at the Pioneer Home in Fairbanks, Alaska.{{cite news |last1=Wight |first1=Philip |title=OPINION: Richard Fineberg's profound but little-known Alaska legacy |url=https://www.adn.com/opinions/2024/10/14/opinion-richard-finebergs-profound-but-little-known-alaska-legacy/ |access-date=16 October 2024 |work=Anchorage Daily News |language=en}}