James Risen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist for ''The New York Times'' who previously worked for the ''Los Angeles Times''. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S. government activities and is the author or co-author of two books about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a book about the American public debate about abortion.

Background

Risen grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, graduated from Brown University in 1977, and received a master's degree in journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1978. He is now an investigative reporter for The New York Times, where he has worked since 1998. Risen is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006 for his stories about President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. He was also a member of The New York Times reporting team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for coverage of of 9/11 and terrorism. Risen has written three books: Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War (Basic Books) (Judy Thomas, co-author) 1998; The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB (Random House) (Milt Bearden, co-author) 2003; and State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (The Free Press) 2006. State of War was a New York Times bestseller. In 2007, Risen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reports on government surveillance programs

Risen and Eric Lichtblau were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006 for a series of controversial investigative reports that they co-wrote about the National Security Agency's surveillance of international communications originating or terminating in the United States codenamed "Stellar Wind" and about a government program called Terrorist Finance Tracking Program designed to detect terrorist financiers, which involved searches of money transfer records in the international SWIFT database. The Associated Press reported on May 24, 2011 that Risen is being called as a witness in the Jeffrey Sterling trial for alleged leaks of classified information.

The White House Press Office issued a statement on August 6, 2007 that the ''New York Times'' article on the Congressional and Presidential approval of a six-month extension of terrorism monitoring in the United States was misleading.

''State of War''

Risen is the author of the book ''State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration'' (January 2006). The book makes numerous allegations about Central Intelligence Agency activities. It alleges that the CIA carried out an operation in 2000 (Operation Merlin) intended to delay Iran's nuclear weapons program by feeding it flawed blueprints for key missing components - which backfired and may actually have aided Iran, as the flaw was likely detected and corrected by a former Soviet nuclear scientist the operation used to make the delivery.

While doing research for the book, Risen's email and phone connections with former CIA Operations Officer Jeffrey Alexander Sterling were monitored by the US federal government. The US federal government also obtained Risen's credit and bank records. The CIA Public Affairs Office issued a press release indicating that Risen's book contains serious errors in every chapter.

Risen writes in ''State of War'' that, "Several of the Iranian [CIA] agents were arrested and jailed, while the fate of some of the others is still unknown", after a CIA official in 2004 sent an Iranian agent an encrypted electronic message, mistakenly including data that could potentially identify "virtually every spy the CIA had inside Iran". The Iranian was a double agent and handed over the information to Iranian intelligence. This also has been denied by an intelligence official. Risen also alleges that the Bush Administration is responsible for transformation of Afghanistan into a "narco-state", that provides a purported 80% of the world's heroin supply.

The publication of this book was expedited following the December 16, 2005 NSA leak story. The timing of ''The New York Times'' story after the Iraq election in mid December 2005 is a source of controversy since the story was delayed for over a year. ''The New York Times'' story appeared two days before a former NSA employee, dismissed in May 2005, requested permission to testify to two Congressional intelligence oversight committees. Byron Calame, the Public Editor of ''The New York Times'', wrote in early January 2006 that two senior ''Times'' officials refused to comment on the timing of the article. The Department of Justice (DOJ) also conducted an investigation of the sources of the security leak involving the NSA. Risen says this book is based on information from a variety of anonymous sources, that he would protect.

The issue of journalists protecting their anonymous sources was widely discussed during this time period due to the Valerie Plame affair. In that case, former ''New York Times'' reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to reveal a source for a story of hers. The Attorney General hinted in a Washington Post article on May 22, 2006 that journalists may be charged for any disclosure of classified national security information. President George W. Bush, in a June 25, 2006 news conference, was critical of the publication of information of classified programs by the ''New York Times''.

United States v. Sterling

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling was being investigated during the Bush administration. In 2010 he was indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917, one of the few people in US history whose alleged contact with a journalist was punished under espionage law, part of Obama's crackdown on whistleblowers and "leaks".

Risen was subpoenaed in relation to the case in 2008. He fought the subpoena, and it expired in the summer of 2009. In what the ''New York Times'' called "a rare step," the Obama administration renewed the subpoena in 2010. In 2011 Risen wrote a detailed response to the subpoena, describing his reasons for refusing to reveal his sources, the public impact of his work, and his experiences with the Bush administration.

Wen Ho Lee

In an article that Risen cowrote with Jeff Gerth for ''The New York Times'' that appeared on March 6, 1999, they allege that "a Los Alamos computer scientist who is Chinese-American" had stolen nuclear secrets for China.

The suspect, later identified as Dr. Wen Ho Lee, pled guilty to a single charge of improper handling of national defense information, the 58 other counts against him were dropped, and he was released from jail . No espionage charges were ever proven. The judge apologized to Dr. Lee for believing the government and putting him in pretrial solitary confinement for months.

On September 26, 2000, the ''New York Times'' apologized for significant errors in reporting of the case. Dr Lee and Helen Zia would later write a book, My Country Versus Me, in which he described Risen and Garth's work as a "hatchet job on me, and a sloppy one at that". He points out numerous factual errors in Risen & Gerth's reporting. The Times was one of five newspapers, including also the ''Los Angeles Times'', which jointly agreed to pay damages to settle a lawsuit concerning their coverage of the case and invasion of privacy.

Views on KGB's involvement in JFK assassination debate

In a 1999 article in the New York Times, regarding revelations from the Mitrokhin Archives of long term KGB efforts to promote the theory that there was a CIA conspiracy to assassinate President John Kennedy, Risen writes, "The K.G.B.'s clumsy propaganda campaign never had much of an impact on the debate over the Kennedy assassination in the United States."

Bibliography

;Books

Bearden, Milton, and James Risen. ''The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB''. New York: Random House, 2004. ISBN 0345472500 (10). ISBN 9780345472502 (13). (Also available as an E-book.)

Risen, James. ''State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration''. New York: Simon & Schuster (Free Press imprint), 2006. ISBN 0743270665 (10). ISBN 9780743270663 (13).

–––, and Judy Thomas. ''Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War''. Perseus Publishing, 1999. ISBN 9780465092734 (13).

See also

Wen Ho Lee - Chinese-American Los Alamos scientist accused of espionage

COINTELPRO - FBI counter-intelligence program investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States

ECHELON - secretive world-wide signals intelligence and analysis network run by the UKUSA Community, capturing radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes and e-mails nearly anywhere in the world

Carnivore - FBI wiretapping of e-mail and internet communications through proxy computers installed at Internet Service Providers

CALEA - ''to make clear a telecommunications carrier's duty to cooperate in the interception of communications for Law Enforcement purposes, and for other purposes''

Operation Mockingbird - alleged Central Intelligence Agency operation to influence domestic and foreign media

Espionage Act of 1917 - WWI law used in the 21st century to punish communication with journalists

Notes

References

Karr, Rick. *Web Exclusive: Rick Karr on Government Secrecy. ''Bill Moyers Journal''. PBS. February 29, 2008. Accessed December 16, 2008. (Vodcast.)

Scheer, Robert. No Defense: "How ''The New York Times'' Convicted Wen Ho Lee". ''The Nation'', October 5, 2000.

Risen, James. "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts". ''The New York Times'', December 16, 2005.

–––. "George Bush Insists That Iran Must Not Be Allowed to Develop Nuclear Weapons. So Why, Six Years Ago in the Clinton Administration, Did the CIA Give the Iranians Blueprints to Build a Bomb?". ''The Guardian,'' 5 January 2006, (Extract from ''State of War''.)

–––. "Global Agenda 2003". Speech presented at the University of Delaware, May 7, 2003.

External links

James Risen – Index of articles published in ''The New York Times, ''Times Topics''.

"The 2006 Pulitzer Prize Winners: National Reporting: James Risen and Eric Lichtblau" – Biographies and photographs of these journalists for ''The New York Times'' hosted on the official Pulitzer Prize Website.

Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:American journalists Category:American investigative journalists Category:American writers Category:Los Angeles Times people Category:The New York Times writers Category:Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners Category:Place of birth missing (living people)

fr:James Risen

name	Keith Olbermann
birth name	Keith Theodore Olbermann
Birth date	January 27, 1959
Birth place	New York City, United States
other names	|education B.S. Communications Arts
alma mater	Cornell University
Occupation	sports announcer, broadcast journalist, political commentator
Years active	1980s–present
net worth
height
weight
television	''Countdown with Keith Olbermann'' (2003–2012)''SportsCenter'' (1992–1997)''Football Night in America'' (2007–2010) | party
religion
denomination
awards	three Edward R. Murrow Awards
website

Keith Theodore Olbermann (; born January 27, 1959) is an American political commentator and writer. Most recently, he was the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of the Current TV weeknight political commentary program, ''Countdown with Keith Olbermann'', until March 30, 2012, a program he hosted with the same title and a similar format on MSNBC from March 2003 to January 2011.

During his time at MSNBC, Olbermann established a niche in cable news commentary, gaining note for his pointed criticism of mainly right-leaning politicians and public figures such as Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly, President George W. Bush and 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain. Though he has been called a "liberal", he has resisted being labelled politically, stating "I'm not a liberal. I'm an American".

Olbermann spent the first twenty years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the ''Best Sportscaster'' award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's ''SportsCenter'' from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he was a producer and anchor for Fox Sports Net and a host of Major League Baseball on Fox.

Early life

Olbermann was born January 27, 1959, in New York City to Marie Katherine (née Charbonier), a preschool teacher, and Theodore Olbermann, a commercial architect, and is of German descent. He has one younger sister, Jenna, who was born in 1968. Olbermann grew up in a Unitarian household in the town of Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester County, and attended Hackley School in nearby Tarrytown.

Olbermann became a devoted fan of baseball at a young age, a love he inherited from his mother who was a lifelong New York Yankees fan. As a teenager, he often wrote about baseball card-collecting and appeared in many sports card-collecting periodicals of the mid-1970s. He is also referenced in ''Sports Collectors Bible'', a 1979 book by Bert Sugar, which is considered one of the important early books for trading card collectors.

While at Hackley, Olbermann began his broadcasting career as a play-by-play announcer for WHTR. After graduating from Hackley in 1975, Olbermann enrolled at Cornell University at the age of 16. At college, Olbermann served as sports director for WVBR, a student-run commercial radio station in Ithaca. Olbermann graduated from Cornell in 1979 with a B.S. in communications arts.

Sports broadcasting

Olbermann began his professional career at UPI and the RKO Radio Network before joining then nascent CNN in 1981. Among the early stories he covered was the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid including the "Miracle on Ice." In the early-to-mid '80s he was a sportscaster on the old WNEW 1130-AM radio station in New York City. Also in the mid-1980s, he did the voice-over on the USA Cable Network's "Cartoon Express", with cheering kids heard in the background. In 1984, he briefly worked as a sports anchor at WCVB-TV in Boston, before heading to Los Angeles to work at KTLA and KCBS. His work there earned him 11 Golden Mike Awards, and he was named best sportscaster by the California Associated Press three times.

ESPN

In 1992, Olbermann joined ESPN's ''SportsCenter'', a position he held until 1997 with the exception of a period from 1993–1994 when he was at ESPN2 on ''SportsNight''. He joined ESPN2 as their "marquee" personality to help launch the network. He often co-hosted ''SportsCenter'' 11 PM show with Dan Patrick, the two becoming a popular anchor team. In 1995, Olbermann won a Cable ACE award for Best Sportscaster. Olbermann later co-authored a book with Patrick called ''The Big Show'' about their experiences working at ''SportsCenter''; he also said that the short-lived ABC dramedy ''Sports Night'' was based on his time on ''SportsCenter'' with Patrick. In his last year with KCBS before moving east to work for ESPN, Olbermann's salary was $475,000 but started "just over $150,000" with ESPN. He made $350,000 at the end of his tenure at ESPN.

Early in 1997, Olbermann was suspended for two weeks after he made an unauthorized appearance on ''The Daily Show'' on Comedy Central with then-host and former ESPN colleague Craig Kilborn. At one point in the show, he referred to Bristol, Connecticut (ESPN's headquarters), as a "'Godforsaken place." Later that year, Olbermann abruptly left ESPN under a cloud of controversy, apparently burning his bridges with the network's management; this began a long and drawn-out feud between Olbermann and ESPN. Between 1997 and 2007, incidents between the two sides included Olbermann's publishing an essay on Salon.com in November 2002, titled "Mea Culpa", in which he stated: "I couldn't handle the pressure of working in daily long-form television, and what was worse, I didn't know I couldn't handle it." The essay told of an instance when his former bosses remarked he had "too much backbone," a claim that is literally true, as Olbermann has six lumbar vertebrae instead of the normal five.

In 2004, Olbermann was not included in ESPN's guest lineup for its 25th anniversary ''SportsCenter'' "Reunion Week," which saw Craig Kilborn and Charley Steiner return to the ''SportsCenter'' set. In 2007, ten years after Olbermann's departure, in an appearance on ''The Late Show with David Letterman'', he said: "If you burn a bridge, you can possibly build a new bridge, but if there's no river any more, that's a lot of trouble." During the same interview, Olbermann stated that he had recently learned that as a result of ESPN's agreeing to let him return to the airwaves, he was banned from ESPN's main (Bristol, Connecticut) campus.

Post-''SportsCenter''

In 1998, Olbermann joined Fox Sports Net as anchor and executive producer for ''The Keith Olbermann Evening News'', a sportscast similar to ''SportsCenter'', airing weekly on Sunday evenings. While at Fox, he again hosted the 2000 World Series as well as Fox Broadcasting's baseball ''Game of the Week''. In May and July 1999, Olbermann also guest starred ten times on the ''Hollywood Squares''.

According to Olbermann, he was demoted by Fox when he asked for a slight reduction in duties for health reasons, and then was fired from Fox in 2001 after reporting on rumors that Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns Fox, was planning on selling the Los Angeles Dodgers. Olbermann characterized the demotion as "blackmail". When asked about Olbermann, Murdoch said: "I fired him...He's crazy." News Corp. went on to sell the Dodgers to Frank McCourt in 2004. That year, Olbermann remarked, "Fox Sports was an infant trying to stand [in comparison to ESPN], but on the broadcast side there was no comparison—ESPN was the bush leagues."

After Olbermann left Fox Sports in 2001, he provided twice-daily sports commentary on the ABC Radio Network, reviving the "Speaking of Sports" and "Speaking of Everything" segments begun by Howard Cosell.

In 2005, Olbermann made a return to ESPN on the radio when he began co-hosting an hour of the syndicated ''Dan Patrick Show'' on ESPN radio, a tenure that lasted until Patrick left ESPN on August 17, 2007. Olbermann and Patrick referred to this segment as "The Big Show," just as their book was known. Patrick often introduced Olbermann with the tagline "saving the democracy," a nod to his work on ''Countdown''.

On April 16, 2007, Olbermann was named co-host of ''Football Night in America'', NBC's NFL pre-game show that precedes their Sunday Night NFL game, a position which reunited him in 2008 with his former ''SportsCenter'' co-anchor Dan Patrick. Olbermann left the show prior to the start of the 2010 season.

News journalism

In 1997, Olbermann left ESPN to host a primetime show on MSNBC, ''The Big Show with Keith Olbermann'' (ESPN objected to the use of the title). The news-driven program, with substantial discussion, relied on Olbermann to carry the 8 to 9 PM hour. The show typically covered three or four topics in a one-hour broadcast. Olbermann also hosted two Sunday editions of ''NBC Nightly News'' and once co-anchored a Saturday edition of the ''Today'' show.

During the interim between shows, Olbermann launched an "official not-for-profit" blog called FOKNewsChannel.com, "FOK" being an abbreviation for "Friends Of Keith". The blog featured political commentaries by Olbermann—including viral video versions of ''Countdown'''s "Special Comment" and "Worst Person" segments, as well as photographs of his outings at professional baseball games. On May 29, 2011, the FOKNewsChannel.com domain redirected to the Current website promoting the June 20 launch.

Olbermann was fired on March 30, 2012. In a statement from Current TV, they stated that "Current was [...] founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it." Olbermann released his own statement, apologizing for "the failure of Current TV" and "that the claims against me implied in Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently." His show was replaced by a show hosted by Eliot Spitzer.

Olberman was on This Week as a roundtable participant on Sunday April 22, 2012.

Political positions

Viewpoints

Although it began as a traditional newscast, ''Countdown with Keith Olbermann'' eventually adopted an opinion-oriented format. In a ''Countdown'' interview with Al Franken on October 25, 2005, Olbermann noted that in 2003, after having Janeane Garofalo and Franken on his show, a vice president of MSNBC had questioned him on inviting "liberals" on consecutive nights, contrasting that occurrence to the apparent ideological latitude he enjoyed at the time of the second Franken interview. In January 2007 ''The Washington Post'''s Howard Kurtz wrote that Olbermann was "position[ing] his program as an increasingly liberal alternative to ''The O'Reilly Factor''." Much of the program has featured harsh criticism of prominent Republicans and right-leaning figures, including those who worked for or supported the George W. Bush Administration, 2008 Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain and running mate Governor Sarah Palin, and rival news commentator Bill O'Reilly, whom Olbermann has routinely dubbed the "Worst Person In The World".

During the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, Olbermann frequently chastised presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton for her campaign tactics against her principal opponent, Senator Barack Obama, and made her the subject of two of his "special comments". Olbermann has also posted on the liberal blog Daily Kos.

In November 2007, British newspaper ''The Daily Telegraph'' placed Olbermann at #67 on their Top 100 list of most influential US liberals. It said that he uses his MSNBC show to promote "an increasingly strident liberal agenda." It added that he would be "a force on the Left for some time to come." Avoiding ideological self-labeling, Olbermann described his reporting in 2006 to Salon.com, "I don’t think in these issues that I’m a liberal; I think that I’m an American. I think I’m acting almost as a historian on these particular things".

Before the 2010 Massachusetts special election, Olbermann called Republican candidate Scott Brown "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, Tea Bagging supporter of violence against women, and against politicians with whom he disagrees". This was criticized by his colleague Joe Scarborough, who called the comments "reckless" and "sad". Yael T. Abouhalkah of the ''Kansas City Star'' said that Olbermann "crossed the line in a major way with his comments". Jon Stewart criticized him about this attack in his show by noting that it was "the harshest description of anyone I've ever heard uttered on MSNBC", following which Olbermann apologized by noting, "I have been a little over the top lately. Point taken. Sorry."

He has accused the Tea Party movement of being racist due to what he views as a lack of racial diversity at the events, using photos that show overwhelmingly Caucasian crowds attending the rallies. In response, the Dallas Tea Party invited Olbermann to attend one of their events and also criticized his network for a lack of racial diversity, pointing out that an online banner of MSNBC personalities that appears on the website shows only white personalities. Olbermann declined the invitation, citing his father's prolonged ill health and hospitalization and noted that the network has minority anchors, contributors and guests.

Criticism of the Bush administration

In Olbermann's "Special Comment" segment on July 3, 2007, he called President George W. Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence the "last straw" and called for the resignation of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

On his February 14, 2008 "Special Comments" segment, Olbermann castigated Bush for threatening to veto an extension of the Protect America Act unless it provided full immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies. During the same commentary, Olbermann called Bush a fascist.

In a special comment on May 14, 2008, Olbermann criticized Bush for announcing that he had stopped playing golf in honor of American soldiers who died in the Iraq war. He stated that Bush never should have started the war in the first place, and he accused Bush of dishonesty and war crimes.

Baseball fan

Olbermann is a dedicated baseball fan and historian of the sport, with membership in the Society for American Baseball Research. In 1973, when he was only 14 years old, Card Memorabilia Associates published his book ''The Major League Coaches: 1921–1973''. The September issue of Beckett Sports Collectibles Vintage included a T206 card that depicted Olbermann in a 1905-era New York Giants uniform. He argues that New York Giants baseball player Fred Merkle has been unduly criticized for his infamous baserunning mistake. He contributed the foreword to ''More Than Merkle'' (ISBN 0-8032-1056-6), a book requesting amnesty for "Merkle's Boner". Olbermann was also one of the founders of the first experts' fantasy baseball league, the ''USA Today Baseball Weekly'' League of Alternative Baseball Reality, and he gave the league its nickname "LABR". Olbermann wrote the foreword to the 2009 Baseball Prospectus Annual.

In March 2009, Olbermann began a baseball-related blog entitled Baseball Nerd. He has also written a series of articles on baseball cards for the ''Sports Collectors Digest''.

Personal life

In June 2006, Olbermann began dating Katy Tur, now a reporter with WNBC-TV. According to Mediaite, the couple broke up in 2009 after three years of cohabitation.

Olbermann suffers from a mild case of coeliac disease, as well as restless legs syndrome. In August 1980, he also suffered a head injury while "leaping" onto a New York City Subway train. This head injury permanently upset his equilibrium, resulting in his avoidance of driving. Along with Bob Costas, he supports the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation as an honorary board member.

During a period in the mid-1990s, Olbermann appeared in a series of Boston Market advertisements, in which he would instruct a group of underweight models to "Eat something!"

Olbermann's father, Theodore, died on March 13, 2010 of complications from colon surgery the previous September. His mother had died several months before. Olbermann had cited the need to spend time with his father for taking a leave of absence shortly before his father's death, occasionally recording segments to air at the beginning of the shows which Lawrence O'Donnell guest hosted in his absence, giving his views on the state of the American health care system and updating viewers on his father's condition.

Career timeline

''SportsCenter'', co-anchor (1992–1997) ''The Big Show'', anchor (1997–1998) ''White House in Crisis'', anchor (1997–1998) ''Major League Baseball on Fox'', studio host (1999–2000) ''The Keith Olbermann Evening News'', anchor (1998–2001)

''Football Night in America'', co-host (2007–2010)

''Countdown with Keith Olbermann'', anchor (MSNBC: 2003–2011; Current TV: 2011–2012)

Bibliography

''The Major League Coaches: 1921–1973'' (Card Memorabilia Associates, 1973).

''The Big Show: Inside ESPN's Sportscenter'' (Atria, 1997) (coauthor: Dan Patrick). ISBN 0-671-00918-4.

''The Worst Person In the World and 202 Strong Contenders'' (Wiley, September 2006). ISBN 0-470-04495-0.

''Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values'' (Random House, December 2007). ISBN 978-1-4000-6676-6.

''Pitchforks and Torches: The Worst of the Worst, from Beck, Bill, and Bush to Palin and Other Posturing Republicans'' (Wiley, October 25, 2010). ISBN 0-470-61447-1.

References

External links

Official show website on Current TV

Keith Olbermann's blog on The Daily Kos

Baseball Nerd, Olbermann's Major League Baseball blog

Biography at TV guide

Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:American broadcast news analysts Category:American political pundits Category:American television news anchors Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American writers of German descent Category:Boston, Massachusetts television anchors Category:Cornell University alumni Category:Major League Baseball announcers Category:MSNBC Category:National Football League announcers Category:NBC News Category:People from New York City Category:People from Westchester County, New York Category:Television news anchors in Los Angeles, California

ar:كيث أولبرمان de:Keith Olbermann et:Keith Olbermann es:Keith Olbermann eo:Keith Olbermann fa:کیت اولبرمن fr:Keith Olbermann ko:키스 올버맨 ja:キース・オルバーマン pl:Keith Olbermann simple:Keith Olbermann sh:Keith Olbermann fi:Keith Olbermann

Name	Thom Hartmann
Birth date	May 07, 1951
Birth place	Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Radio/TV host, political commentator, author, former psychotherapist, former entrepreneur
Spouse	Louise Hartmann
Website	thomhartmann.com }}

Thom Hartmann (born May 7, 1951) is an American radio host, author, former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, and progressive political commentator. His nationally-syndicated radio show, ''The Thom Hartmann Program'', airs in the United States and has 2.75 million listeners a week. In 2008, 2009, and 2010, Talkers Magazine named Hartmann the tenth most important talk show host in America, and number 8 in 2011 defining him as the most important liberal host for four years in a row (the ones above Hartmann are conservatives).

Hartmann's article "Talking Back To Talk Radio" became part of the original business plan of Air America Radio. He replaced Al Franken on the network on February 19, 2007. On March 1, 2009, Hartmann moved syndication of his show from Air America to the former Jones Network, now owned by Dial Global (which also syndicates Neal Boortz, Ed Schultz, Michael Smerconish, Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, and Clark Howard). In the summer of 2009, his program began to also be offered to nonprofit stations via the Pacifica Radio network, and some community/nonprofit stations in the US are also carrying his show. The radio program is also simulcast as a TV program by Free Speech TV on Dish Network and DirecTV. Additionally, he stars in a one-hour daily TV show which his production company records at the studios of and licenses to the RT news network, ''The Big Picture''; that TV show is also syndicated by Free Speech TV and carried on both Dish Network and local cable TV stations.

Hartmann is a lay scholar of the history and textual analysis of the United States Constitution; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); Thomas Jefferson; the Assassination of John F. Kennedy; the Federalist Papers; electronic voting rigging; and environmental issues like global warming. He has authored many books on political topics and ADHD. He is the inventor of the Hunter vs. farmer theory of the condition.

Early life

Hartmann was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of a staunch conservative Republican, atheist father and a Christian mother, and grew up in nearby Lansing. His paternal grandparents were from Norway. Interested in politics from a young age, he campaigned for Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential election when he was 13. By 1968, Hartmann was studying at Michigan State University and working as a part-time news announcer at local country music station WITL while protesting the Vietnam War with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Beliefs

Hartmann is considered to have progressive/liberal politics (although he describes himself as part of the radical middle). He is the author of numerous books including ''Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights'', in which he argues that the 1886 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (118 U.S. 394) did not actually grant corporate personhood, and that this doctrine derives from a mistaken interpretation of a Supreme Court clerk's notes. Hartmann considers this a clear contradiction of the intent of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He has also written on the separation of church and state, drawing upon the Federalist Papers to argue that the Founding Fathers warned against the notion of the United States being a Christian nation. He contends that the 2000 American election and 2004 American election were stolen through electronic tampering, denial of the voting franchise by rigged voting lists, and limiting availability of voting machines in selected precincts. He also accuses the Bush administration of eroding democracy and individual freedoms.

Hartmann is also a vocal critic of the effects of neoliberal globalization on the U.S. economy, claiming that economic policies enacted during and since the presidency of Ronald Reagan have led, in large part, to many American industrial enterprises' being acquired by multinational firms based in overseas countries, leading in many cases to manufacturing jobs' – once considered a major foundation of the U.S. economy – being relocated to countries in Asia and other areas where the costs of labor are lower than in the U.S.; and the concurrent reversal of the United States' traditional role of a leading exporter of finished manufactured goods to that of a primary importer of finished manufactured goods (exemplified by massive trade deficits with countries such as China). Hartmann argues that this phenomenon is leading to the erosion of the American middle class, whose survival Hartmann deems critical to the survival of American democracy. This argument is expressed in Hartmann's 2006 book, ''Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class and What We Can Do About It.'' One of the book's main arguments is that media deregulation leads to corporate media's shifting the American consensus towards the acceptance of privatization and massive corporate profits – which causes the shrinking of the middle class.

In the book ''Ultimate Sacrifice'', he and co-author Lamar Waldron argue that President John F. Kennedy's assassination resulted from a conspiracy by two mafia godfathers (Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante, Jr.) who took advantage of a proposed 1963 USA-sponsored coup (against Cuba's Fidel Castro) to kill the President and then hide their tracks in the resulting cover-up of the top-secret coup plans. Gore Vidal, in his recent autobiography "Point To Point Navigation" devotes much of the final two chapters of his book to praising Hartmann's and Lamar Waldron's scholarship in "solving" the JFK case (JFK was a friend of Vidal's).

Talk radio career

Hartmann started in radio as a DJ (country, rock, progressive overnight) in 1968 in Lansing, Michigan, (on WITL, WVIC, WFMK) and program director at WNBY and worked full or part-time in radio while also attending school and/or running businesses in Michigan for a decade. He returned to radio in February 2003 with a show on a local station in Vermont, then a month later picked up the noon-3 PM ET slot on the i.e. America Radio Network and Sirius Satellite Radio. In 2005, he moved from Vermont to Oregon and, in addition to continuing his national show, also co-hosted a local talk show in Portland, Oregon (with Carl Wolfson, the late Heidi Tauber, and later Christine Alexander), from 2005 until early 2007 on KPOJ, initially an affiliate of Air America Radio owned by Clear Channel Communications. The KPOJ local morning 6 – 9 AM PT is now hosted by Carl Wolfson. In late 2010 Hartmann moved his show from Portland to Washington D.C.

Hartmann's national program, on the air since 2003 and now in the 3PM to 6PM ET daypart, was chosen by Air America to replace Al Franken on most Air America affiliates in 2007. Some stations, such as The Quake in San Francisco, had already dropped or moved Franken for Hartmann, who now is, according to ''Talkers Magazine,'' America's most important liberal talker. As of March 2012, the show was carried on 81 terrestrial radio stations in 34 states as well as on Sirius and XM satellite radio. A community radio station in Africa, Radio Builsa in Ghana, also broadcasts the show. Various local cable TV networks simulcast the program.

According to his syndicator Dial Global, more people listen to Hartmann's show on more stations than any other progressive talk show in America. ''The Thom Hartmann Show'' is estimated by industry magazine ''Talkers'' to have 2.75 million unique listers per week. In addition to Dial Global, a subsidiary of Triton Media Group, the show is now also offered via Pacifica Audioport to non-profit stations in a non-profit compliant format and is simulcast on Dish Network Channel 9415 via Free Speech TV Network.

Many guests appear on the show purporting points of view on diverse social and political topics. Some guests proffer progressive views similar to Hartmann's, but more than half are conservatives, libertarians, or Ayn Rand Institute members who espouse opposing views. A vigorous debate with the host usually ensues. There are four regular guests on the program, and they are sympathetic to Hartmann's political views. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT) appears every Friday during the first hour of the show titled "Brunch with Bernie". Ellen Ratner of the Talk Radio News Service provides Washington commentary daily. Victoria Jones who is the White House correspondent for Talk Radio News Service appears occasionally as does Dr. Ravi Batra an economics professor at SMU.

Like all talk radio shows, ''The Thom Hartmann Program'' takes calls from listeners. When callers asked Thom how he was, he used to reply, "I'm great, but I'll get better." But after a time callers would regularly try to elicit this response so he's stopped replying this way routinely. Hartmann ends each show with the phrase, "Activism begins with you, democracy begins with you. Get out there, get active! Tag, you're it!"

TV program

Hartmann produces a one hour daily TV show, ''The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann,'' which is seen worldwide on the Russian-based RT news channel, as well as on Free Speech TV; through Free Speech TV it is also seen on selected local-origination and Public-access television cable TV channels.

Business career

Hartmann began his business career in the early 1970s while in his 20s, co-founding The Woodley Herber Company. Woodley Herber sold herbal products, potpourris and teas, and operated until 1978. It was during this time that Hartmann obtained three degrees in herbology and homeopathic medicine, one of which was from a diploma mill. Thereafter Hartmann moved to New Hampshire to begin The New England Salem Children's Village, which still operates in Rumney, New Hampshire. He was Executive Director of NESCT for five years, and on its board for over 25 years. NESCT's child-care model was based on that of the German Salem International organization, and through his affiliation with that group he helped start international relief programs in Uganda, Colombia, Russia, Israel, India, Australia, and several other countries between 1979 and today.

Hartmann founded International Wholesale Travel and its retail subsidiary Sprayberry Travel in Atlanta in 1983, a business which in the intervening years has generated over a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue. According to their website, Sprayberry Travel was lauded by the Wall Street Journal in 1984 for being one of the early adopters of frequent travel programs analogous to the recently initiated frequent flyer programs of the airline industry. He sold his share in the business in 1986 and retired with his family to Germany to work with the international relief organization Salem International. In the late 1970s, he had been a trainer in advertising and marketing for The American Marketing Centers (now defunct), and in 1987 after returning from Germany founded the Atlanta advertising agency Chandler, MacDonald, Stout, Schneiderman & Poe, Inc., which did business as The Newsletter Factory. He sold his interest in that company in 1996 and retired to Vermont.

Other areas of notability

Hartmann is a writer who has published more than twenty books on diverse topics. The title which won the most critical acclaim is ''The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight''. In 1999 he was invited by the Dalai Lama to spend a week in Dharamsala after the Dalai Lama finished reading this book. Hartmann won the Project Censored Award in 2004 for ''Unequal Protection''. As a result of a book on spirituality, ''The Prophet's Way'', he was invited in 1998 to meet Pope John Paul II.

Trained in the 1970s in Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Richard Bandler (Hartmann is licensed by Bandler's Society of NLP as both an NLP Practitioner and an NLP Trainer, and Bandler wrote the foreword to his book "Healing ADD"), Hartmann popularized some of its concepts in ''Cracking the Code'' (2007), which argues that Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz made use of them in the 1980s and 1990s for Republican Party causes and advocates using them to advance liberalism. His book "Healing ADD" also leans heavily on NLP techniques. His book on the JFK Assassination (written with Lamar Waldron) titled "Ultimate Sacrifice" is cited extensively in the last two chapters of Gore Vidal's recent autobiography as having "finally solved" that case.

Hartmann was one of several contributors to ''Air America, the Playbook'', a 300 plus page collection of essays, transcripts, and interviews by liberal radio personalities. It was published shortly before the 2006 Congressional elections and was on The New York Times Best Seller list for October 8, 2006.

Leonardo DiCaprio made a web movie titled "Global Warning" that was inspired by ''The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight''. Hartmann appears in DiCaprio's 2007 documentary ''The 11th Hour'', as well as the feature documentary film ''Dalai Lama Renaissance'' (with Harrison Ford), and Crude Impact.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Hartmann has authored in the area of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and adult attention-deficit disorder (AADD) and is the creator (first proposed by him in 1978, first published nationally in 1992) of the now well-known hunter vs. farmer theory that ADD is an expected evolutionary adaptation to hunting lifestyles. These individuals have the ability of rapidly shifting their focus and external attention and of holding multiple trains of thought. This ability causes difficulties when they must live and work in cultures in which "farming" – well-planned, predictable, organized and repetitive behaviors – is typical. His first book on the disorder, ''Attention Deficit Disorder: a Different Perception'' was described by ''Scientific American'' as "innovative and fresh". Hartmann has established specialized schools for children with ADHD, such as The Hunter School in Rumney, New Hampshire, which he co-founded with his wife Louise.

He also operated the "ADD Forum" and "DeskTop Publishing Forum", along with several others, on CompuServe.

Bibliography

2011: 2010 (second edition): 2009: 2008: 2007: 2006: 2006: 2005: by Lamar Waldron, with Thom Hartmann 2004: 2004: 2004 (revised ed.): 2004 (revised ed. – first ed. 1998): 2004 (revised ed. – first ed. 1997): 2003: 2000: 2000: 1998: 1996: 1996: by Thom Hartmann and Jane Bowman, with Susan Burgess 1995: 1994: 1994: 1992 (first edition):

References

External links

ThomHartmann.com Official site. Includes information on and streaming of the radio and TV shows, essays, chatroom, and a discussion board.

Past episodes of ''The Big Picture'' on YouTube

Various video clips at BigPicture.tv Hartmann speaking on various topics.

''Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It'', Hartmann talks about his book in a video at ''Fora TV''.

Thom Hartmann with the Dalai Lama Videos made during the filming of the documentary ''Dalai Lama Renaissance''.

"When Democracy Fails" Podcast on Google Video.

Category:Air America (radio network) Category:American alternative journalists Category:American broadcast news analysts Category:American democracy activists Category:American environmentalists Category:American people of Norwegian descent Category:American political writers Category:American psychology writers Category:American self-help writers Category:American spiritual writers Category:American talk radio hosts Category:Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder Category:People from Lansing, Michigan Category:Progressive talk radio Category:Radio personalities from Portland, Oregon Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:People from Grand Rapids, Michigan Category:American Christians

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Jacob Paul "Jake" Tapper (born March 12, 1969) is an American print and television journalist, currently the senior White House correspondent for ABC News in Washington, D.C. He was named to that position the day after election day 2008, having covered then-senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

He last interviewed Obama in July 2009 in Moscow, in an interview where the president expressed confidence that his foreign policy approach was starting to work and said regarding the stimulus package, "there's nothing that we would have done differently." That January, Tapper had broken the story of the tax troubles of then-Health and Human Services secretary nominee and former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), troubles that ultimately derailed Daschle's nomination.

From March through July 2010, Tapper was interim anchor of ABC's ''This Week'', hosting the program until Christiane Amanpour became ''This Week''s anchor.

Life and career

Tapper was born in New York City and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Anne Tapper, retired as a psychiatric nurse at Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center. His father, Theodore S. "Ted" Tapper, a Dartmouth graduate, was a president of South Philadelphia Pediatrics, a group medical practice, and is an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Jefferson Medical College, both in Philadelphia.

He attended Akiba Hebrew Academy (his father is Jewish and his mother, a native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, converted from Presbyterianism to Judaism). He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and ''magna cum laude'' from Dartmouth College in 1991 with a B.A. in history modified by visual studies. He briefly attended graduate school at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television.

In 1992, Tapper was a campaign press secretary for Democratic congressional candidate Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (PA-13) and later served as her congressional press secretary. Tapper worked in public relations for Powell Tate, a Washington, D.C., public affairs firm run by Democrat Jody Powell and Republican Sheila Tate. He also worked briefly for Handgun Control Inc. (now the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence) in 1997. After writing many freelance stories, Tapper began his journalism career full time as a senior writer for the ''Washington City Paper'' from 1998 to 1999 and wrote about his experience going on a date with Monica Lewinsky in 1998 for that publication, in a story that skewered Washington's culture of scandal. He was the Washington correspondent for Salon.com from 1999 to 2002, where he was an early questioner of the Bush administration's claims about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. He has also contributed to ''GQ'', ''The Weekly Standard'', NPR's ''All Things Considered'', ''The New York Times'', and ''The Washington Post''. In 2001 he hosted a TV show on CNN called ''Take Five'' in which young journalists and commentators discussed politics and pop culture. In 2002 he hosted a series of entertainment news specials on VH1 and in 2003 he hosted shows focused on independent film on the Sundance Channel. ABC News hired him in 2003. Tapper has been a frequent guest on the Imus in the Morning radio program.

He is the author of the books ''Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency'' on the 2000 Presidential election and ''Body Slam: The Jesse Ventura Story''.

His comic strip ''Capitol Hell'' appeared in ''Roll Call'' from 1994 to 2003. He has also contributed cartoons to the ''American Spectator'' magazine, the ''Los Angeles Times,'' and ''The Philadelphia Inquirer.'' In 2006, he married Jennifer Marie Brown of St. Joseph, Missouri, who was a regional field manager in Washington, D.C. for Planned Parenthood Federation.

On July 6, 2009, former MSNBC television personality Dan Abrams launched a website service, Mediaite, reporting on media figures. The site ranks all TV-based journalists in America by influence. Tapper ranks, as of December 2010, at number one.

Tapper was considered one of the leading candidates to replace George Stephanopoulos as anchor of ''This Week''. Stephanopoulos took over for Diane Sawyer, co-host of ''Good Morning America'', when she assumed the role as anchor of ''World News''. However, CNN's Christiane Amanpour was selected instead. Tapper served as the interim anchor until Amanpour took over the show on August 1, 2010.

Tapper has also appeared on the Judge John Hodgman podcast as guest bailiff, standing in for regular bailiff Jesse Thorn during the August 31, 2011 episode entitled "De Plane".

Personal Life

Jake lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Jennifer and two children. The Tappers were married in 2006 in Jennifer's home state of Missouri.

References

External links

ABC News biography

Jake Tapper's blog -- ''Political Punch''

Jake Tapper's personal website -- lots of links to past stories from before ABC News

Jake Tapper's Salon.com archives

Category:1969 births Category:Akiba Hebrew Academy (Merion, Pennsylvania) alumni Category:American cartoonists Category:American Jews Category:American newspaper reporters and correspondents Category:American political writers Category:American television reporters and correspondents Category:Dartmouth College alumni Category:Living people Category:People from New York City Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Birthname	James Carney
Office	29th White House Press Secretary
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Jennifer Psaki
Term start	February 11, 2011
Predecessor	Robert Gibbs
Birth date	May 22, 1965
Birth place	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Party	Democratic Party
Spouse	Claire Shipman
Children	2
Alma mater	Yale University
Profession	Journalist
Website	White House Briefing Room }}

James "Jay" Carney (born May 22, 1965) is President Barack Obama's second White House Press Secretary. Prior to his appointment as Press Secretary, replacing Robert Gibbs, he was director of communications to Vice President Joe Biden. Carney previously served as Washington Bureau Chief for ''Time'' magazine, a post he held from September 2005 until December 2008, and as a regular contributor in the "roundtable" segment of ABC News' ''This Week with George Stephanopoulos''.

Personal life and education

Carney was raised in Northern Virginia, attended high school at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and earned a B.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Yale University, graduating cum laude, in 1987. He and his wife, Claire Shipman (a senior correspondent for ''ABC News''), live in Washington, D.C., with their son and daughter.

Journalism career

After being hired as a reporter for ''The Miami Herald'' in 1987, Carney joined ''Time'' magazine as its Miami Bureau Chief in 1989. Carney worked as a correspondent in ''Time'''s Moscow Bureau for three years, covering the collapse of the U.S.S.R.. He came to Washington in 1993 to report on the Bill Clinton White House.

He has written and reported about the presidency of George W. Bush, and was one of a handful of reporters who were aboard Air Force One with President Bush on September 11, 2001. Carney later won the 2003 Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.

Carney was ''Time'''s Washington Bureau Deputy Chief from 2003 to 2005, and Chief from September 2005 until December 2008. He was assigned to the magazine’s Washington Bureau in that tenure while also being able to write about politics and national affairs. Carney has also worked for ''CNN'' (another TIME Warner division) as a special correspondent.

Carney was one of the early mainstream journalists to take up the medium of blogging.

Work in Obama administration

On December 15, 2008, Carney went from the private sector to public service as Director of Communications to Vice President Joe Biden.

In January 2011, Carney was selected to become the Obama administration's second White House Press Secretary. He was named the successor to previous White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs by White House Chief of Staff, William Daley. Carney was one of fourteen White House appointees announced by Daley on January 27.

He meets with the president daily, and can have four or five meetings a day to work on how to present ideas.

During a March 13, 2012, press briefing he revealed that his favorite band is Guided by Voices.

References

External links

Category:1965 births Category:Lawrenceville School alumni Category:Living people Category:Obama Administration personnel Category:People from Virginia Category:Time (magazine) people Category:White House Press Secretaries Category:Yale University alumni Category:The Miami Herald people

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