Steven Emerson (born June 6, 1954)[1] is an American investigative journalist, author, and pundit on national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism.

He is the founder and director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, and received a George Polk Award for the 1994 documentary Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America.

[3][4] Emerson was a freelance writer for The New Republic, for whom he wrote a series of articles in 1982 on the influence of Saudi Arabia on U.S. corporations, law firms, public-relations outfits, and educational institutions.

Reviewing the book, The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Emerson and Mr. Duffy have put together a surpassing account of the investigation to date, rich with drama and studded with the sort of anecdotal details that give the story the appearance of depth and weight.

[2][13][14] The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) noted that PBS denied requests by Arab and Muslim journalists to screen the program before its showing, and argued that Emerson was promoting "a wild theory about an Islamic terrorist network in America".

[18] Emerson has made false claims about Muslims in the US and Europe; in particular, some of his claims during a Fox News segment about the relationship between British Muslims and the city of Birmingham were subsequently rebuked by the then British Prime Minister David Cameron and led to a censure of Fox News by Ofcom for the airing of the comments which the broadcasting regulator characterized as "materially misleading" and "a serious breach for a current affairs programme".

"[26] In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist" organization, PIJ, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison, after a jury deadlocked on 9 charges (8 of which the government agreed to drop as part of the plea bargain) and acquitted him on another 8.

[33] Emerson has said some critics fail to recite the rest of his statement that references the 1993 World Trade Center attack which was also carried out with a fertilizer truck bomb.

He supported the media's decision to report the possible link to Middle East terrorism, saying "There was no doubt" that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies suspected it.

[35] In testimony on March 19, 1996, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Emerson described the Holy Land Foundation as "the main fund-raising arm for Hamas in the United States.

One of the men convicted in the World Trade Center bombing, Ahmad Ajaj, returned to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1992 with a bomb manual later seized by the U.S. An English translation of the document, entered into evidence in the World Trade Center trial, said that the manual was dated 1982, that it had been published in Amman, Jordan, and that it carried a heading on the front and succeeding pages: "The Basic Rule".

[38] The Investigative Project on Terrorism was founded by Emerson in 1995, shortly after the release of his documentary film, Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America, which first aired in the United States in 1994 on PBS.

"[41] The think-tank, Center for American Progress (CAP), stated that the IPT was one of ten foundations constituting what it called "the Islamophobia network in America".

[53] A review by Michael Wines in The New York Times of The Fall of Pan Am 103, while noting that the authors were "respected journalists" and "not to be lightly dismissed," and that they "talked to 250 people, including senior law enforcement and intelligence officials in seven nations", opined that charges of Iranian complicity were presented "without much substantiation" although Wines did go on to say that: "They build a convincing circumstantial case against Iran and its terrorist agents.

"[54] Emerson and del Sesto responded: "We defy anyone to point to any passages that suggest such bias.... these characterizations of the book are wild figments of Ms. Edgar's political imagination.

"[60] Emerson's work was cited as an instance of poor reporting on Islam in the Sut Jhally film about Edward Said's Orientalism, specifically his claim after the Oklahoma City bombing that the municipality was a center of Muslim extremism.

[69] In January 2015, following terrorist attacks in Paris, Emerson stated in an interview on Fox News that the city of Birmingham was populated entirely by Muslims and was a "no go area" for non-Muslims.

[74] In response to these comments, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that he "choked on his porridge" when he heard them and observed that Emerson was "clearly a complete idiot".

[81][82] On December 14, 2021, CAIR's Ohio chapter fired an executive who confessed to acting as a "mole" and passing confidential information to for Steven Emerson's organization IPT.