Ruth Shalit Barrett is a freelance writer and journalist. Berrett's journalism career began at Reason Magazine in 1992. Soon after, she was offered an internship at The New Republic. She was promoted to an associate editor position at The New Republic, writing cover stories for the political weekly. She also wrote for the New York Times Magazine and had a contract to write pieces for GQ. In 1999, Barrett resigned from The New Republic after allegations of plagiarism and inaccuracy. In 2020, The Atlantic retracted an article she wrote after it emerged that she had encouraged a source to lie to the magazine's fact-checking department.