Sidney James (died March 11, 2004) was an executive journalist. He was a longtime journalist and executive with Time-Life and the founding managing editor of Sports Illustrated magazine. He was credited with helping make the magazine a success, when Time-Life thought it would fail. He wrote about his long career in journalism in the 1994 book, "Press Pass: A Journalist's Tale." He died of cardiopulmonary arrest and prostate cancer at a nursing home in Alameda, California, at the age of 97.