Jodi Kantor (born April 21, 1975) is a The New York Times correspondent and author of the best-selling book The Obamas, published by Little Brown in January 2012. She has been writing about Barack and Michelle Obama, along with numerous other political figures, since 2007.

After growing up in New York City, Kantor moved to Holmdel Township, New Jersey where she graduated from Holmdel High School. Kantor graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University in 1996. She was selected for and participated on the prestigious Dorot Fellowship in Israel from 1996-97 and later served as a New York City Urban Fellow. Later, she attended Harvard Law School for one semester, taking a leave to work at Slate, where she became an editor. After corresponding with New York Times columnist Frank Rich about how that paper could improve its arts coverage, she was brought on as editor of the Arts and Leisure section by Howell Raines. She is thought to be the youngest person to edit a section of the New York Times.^{[citation needed]} Under the guidance of Rich and others, she remade the section to include a more visual approach, new features and more ambitious reporting.

David Richmond Gergen (born May 9, 1942) is an American political consultant and former presidential advisor who served during the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. He is currently Director of the Center for Public Leadership and a professor of public service at Harvard Kennedy School. Gergen is the Editor-at-large for U.S. News and World Report and the Senior Political Analyst for CNN.

David Gergen was born in Durham, North Carolina. He is the youngest of four children of Aubigne Munger (née Lermond) and Dr. John Jay Gergen, who once chaired Duke University's mathematics department. His brother, Kenneth J. Gergen, is a psychologist and professor at Swarthmore College.

Gergen served in the U.S. Navy for three-and-a-half years, serving on a ship home-ported in Japan. Gergen earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1963 and was a member of Manuscript Society. In 1967, he received his law degree from Harvard Law School. In 1967, Gergen married Anne Gergen of England. She is a family therapist; they live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They have two children, Christopher and Katherine, and four grandchildren.

Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American journalist, author, and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories. As of September 2011, he also serves as host of his own eponymous syndicated daytime talk show, Anderson.

Anderson Hays Cooper was born on June 3, 1967, the younger son of the writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and the artist, designer, writer, and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, and is a great-great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt of the prominent Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune. Cooper's media experience began early. As a baby, he was photographed by Diane Arbus for Harper's Bazaar. He is also a descendant, through his mother, of Brevet Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick who was with Union General William T. Sherman in his March through Georgia.

At the age of 3 Cooper was a guest on The Tonight Show on September 17, 1970, appearing with his mother. At the age of 9, he appeared on To Tell the Truth as an impostor. From age 10 to 13 Cooper modeled with Ford Models for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Macy's.

Bob Lloyd Schieffer (pronounced /ˈʃiːfər/; born February 25, 1937) is an American television journalist who has been with CBS News since 1969, serving 23 years as anchor on the Saturday edition of CBS Evening News from 1973 to 1996; chief Washington correspondent since 1982, moderator of the Sunday public affairs show Face the Nation since 1991, and, between March 2005 and August 31, 2006, interim weekday anchor of the CBS Evening News. As of 2011, he is one of the primary substitutes for Scott Pelley.

Schieffer is one of the few journalists to have covered all four of the major Washington national assignments: the White House, the Pentagon, United States Department of State, and United States Congress. His career with CBS has almost exclusively dealt with national politics.

Schieffer is a survivor of grade III bladder cancer; he was diagnosed in 2003 and as of 2004 is cancer-free.

On October 13, 2004, he was the moderator of the third presidential debate between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry in Tempe, Arizona. On October 15, 2008, Schieffer moderated the third presidential debate between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain.

María de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien (born September 19, 1966) is an American broadcast journalist. She is the anchor of CNN's morning news program Starting Point which premiered on January 2, 2012 and airs weekdays from 7:00 am to 9:00 am ET.

Along with Early Start, Starting Point replaced American Morning, which aired from 2001 to 2011. O'Brien co-anchored American Morning from July 2003 to April 2007, with Miles O'Brien. Their common surname is coincidental.

After leaving the morning anchoring position, O'Brien worked with the "In America" documentary unit on CNN.

O'Brien's parents, both immigrants, met at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland in 1958.

My parents were both immigrants—my mother from Cuba, my father from Australia. Both attended daily Mass at the church near campus. Every day my father would offer my mother a ride. Every day, she declined. Finally she said yes. One year later, the day after Christmas, the two of them were married.

O'Brien's parents married in 1958 in Washington, D.C. Her father Edward, an Australian (from Toowoomba, Queensland) of Irish descent, was a mechanical engineering professor. Her mother, Estella, who is Afro-Cuban, was a French and English teacher. O'Brien is the fifth of six children, who all graduated from Harvard College; O'Brien attended Harvard from 1984 to 1988, but did not obtain a degree until she returned in 2000. Her siblings are law professor Maria (born 1961); corporate lawyer Cecilia (born 1962), businessman Tony (born 1963) - who heads a documents company; eye surgeon Estela (born 1964); and anesthesiologist Orestes (born 1967).