Alfred Balk (July 24, 1930 – November 25, 2010[1]) was an American reporter, nonfiction author and magazine editor who wrote groundbreaking articles about housing segregation, the Nation of Islam, the environment and Illinois politics.

During a career-long emphasis on media improvement, he served on the Twentieth Century Fund's task force that established a National News Council, consulted for several foundations, served as secretary of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's Committee on the Employment of Minority Groups in the News Media, and produced a film, That the People Shall Know: The Challenge of Journalism, narrated by Walter Cronkite.

While working at the weekly Saturday Evening Post, which for a time retained him under contract as a lead writer, he wrote on subjects such as Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, victims of the fallout-shelter craze, how a T.V.

[1] Balk rose to prominence in 1962 after writing an article for the Saturday Evening Post titled “Confession of a Block-Buster” which chronicled a Chicago real estate speculator's strategy of frightening white homeowners into selling their property at a loss and then reselling to black buyers at inflated prices.

[4] The article made legal history when a group of black homeowners subsequently tried to compel disclosure of his confidential source, pseudonymous speculator ("Norris Vitchek").

The other, “God Is Rich” (October 1967), on religious organizations’ tax exemptions, led to the book The Religion Business (John Knox Press) and, under a Foundation fellowship, a nationwide study The Free List: Property Without Taxes (Russell Sage Foundation), which Time, in a two-page report (May 3, 1971), described as “a penetrating new book.” Balk moved to New York in 1966 as features editor and editor at large of Saturday Review under Norman Cousins.

There he wrote his eighth book, The Rise of Radio: From Marconi Through the Golden Age (McFarland, 2006) which received positive reviews from other media professionals, including Mike Wallace of CBS.

His wife served as an important support throughout her husband's career, as indicated in Balk's scholarly papers in the collections of the Newberry Library in Chicago and Syracuse University.