Joseph Fels Barnes (1907-1970) was a newspaperman who joined the New York Herald-Tribune in 1934, serving first as Moscow correspondent, then in Berlin, and from 1939 to 1948 as foreign editor. In 1948 he left to become part-owner (with Bartley Crum) and editor of PM, which soon went out of business to be replaced by the New York Star, where he continued as editor until it folded in 1949.
Barnes was educated at Harvard, where he was Managing Editor and President of the Harvard Crimson. Prior to joining the Herald-Tribune Barnes was on the staff of Institute for Pacific Relations (IPR) from 1931 to 1934. During World War II Barnes worked for the Office of War Information (OWI) and the Voice of America.
Often affiliated with left-wing causes, Barnes was identified as a Communist Party member by several witnesses during the Communist trials of the 1950s, but the charge was never proven.