Jonathan Alter
Newsweek Senior Editor & NBC News Correspondent
Exclusive Representation by Greater Talent Network
Jonathan Alter is an award winning columnist, television analyst and author. Since 1991, Alter has written a widely acclaimed Newsweek column that examines politics, media and social and global issues. For more than a decade, he has worked as a contributing correspondent to NBC News. His 2006 book, The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, was a national best-seller that received fresh attention when the White House announced that it had been read by President Barack Obama and much of his team. Alter is also the author of Between The Lines: A View inside American Politics, People and Culture, a collection of his Newsweek columns published in August 2008. Alter is the originator and creative force in writing Newsweek’s “Conventional Wisdom Watch,” which uses up, down and sideways arrows to measure and lampoon the news. As a senior editor, he helps shape the magazine’s overall news coverage.
The 2008 campaign marked the seventh presidential election Alter has covered for Newsweek. He frequently interviews American presidents and other world leaders, regularly breaks news and has authored more than 50 Newsweek cover stories on everything from shrinking confidence in the American news media, to Bill Clinton's first interview after leaving the presidency, to Alter’s personal story of living with cancer. In 2004, Alter wrote the first cover story on Obama in a national magazine, one of several he has authored on the new president. Beyond politics and media, he has written extensively over the years about the economy, education, terrorism, anti-Semitism, at-risk children, national service and a wide variety of other issues.
Among his exclusives in the 2008 campaign season were that Barack Obama would seek the presidency (October, 2006), and that Sen. Edward Kennedy was likely to endorse Obama. (January, 2008).
In his role at NBC News, Alter has appeared on all NBC broadcasts including TODAY, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, NBC News specials, MSNBC and CNBC. He appears twice weekly on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. On Election Night, 2000, Alter went on the air to break the story about confusing “butterfly ballots” in Palm Beach County, Florida that shaped the outcome of the election.
Alter has earned more than a dozen awards for his political and media columns, including multiple National Headliner Awards, American Bar Association awards, Women in Communications awards and the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Reporting. He was part of the teams of Newsweek reporters and editors awarded the prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1993, 2002, 2004. In 1995, Alter was selected as one of the nation’s ten most influential media critics in by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University. In 1993, he was a Fellow of the Japan Society in Tokyo , in 1997 he was the Ferris Visiting Professor of Press and Politics at Princeton University and in 2009 he held the John Rhodes Chair at Arizona State University.
Known at the podium for his insight, wit and first-hand anecdotes, Alter offers an incisive, entertaining and always compelling view of national and world affairs, and how media and politics interact. His presentation is as fresh as the day’s headlines, but informed by a deep knowledge of history and a razor-sharp analytical mind.
Alter joined Newsweek as an associate editor in the Nation section in March 1983, and became media critic the following year. He was named a senior writer in February 1987 and a senior editor in September 1991. For two years prior to joining Newsweek, Alter was an editor at The Washington Monthly. He has also freelanced articles for such publications as The New Republic, Esquire, Slate, PARADE and The New York Times.
A Chicago native, Alter received his B.A. in history with honors from Harvard in 1979. Besides The Defining Moment and Between the Lines, he is the author of Selecting a President and the coeditor of Inside the System. He is married to Emily Lazar. They live in Montclair, New Jersey with their children.
Interested in booking Jonathan Alter to speak at your next event?
The 2008 campaign marked the seventh presidential election Alter has covered for Newsweek. He frequently interviews American presidents and other world leaders, regularly breaks news and has authored more than 50 Newsweek cover stories on everything from shrinking confidence in the American news media, to Bill Clinton's first interview after leaving the presidency, to Alter’s personal story of living with cancer. In 2004, Alter wrote the first cover story on Obama in a national magazine, one of several he has authored on the new president. Beyond politics and media, he has written extensively over the years about the economy, education, terrorism, anti-Semitism, at-risk children, national service and a wide variety of other issues.
Among his exclusives in the 2008 campaign season were that Barack Obama would seek the presidency (October, 2006), and that Sen. Edward Kennedy was likely to endorse Obama. (January, 2008).
In his role at NBC News, Alter has appeared on all NBC broadcasts including TODAY, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, NBC News specials, MSNBC and CNBC. He appears twice weekly on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. On Election Night, 2000, Alter went on the air to break the story about confusing “butterfly ballots” in Palm Beach County, Florida that shaped the outcome of the election.
Alter has earned more than a dozen awards for his political and media columns, including multiple National Headliner Awards, American Bar Association awards, Women in Communications awards and the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Reporting. He was part of the teams of Newsweek reporters and editors awarded the prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1993, 2002, 2004. In 1995, Alter was selected as one of the nation’s ten most influential media critics in by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University. In 1993, he was a Fellow of the Japan Society in Tokyo , in 1997 he was the Ferris Visiting Professor of Press and Politics at Princeton University and in 2009 he held the John Rhodes Chair at Arizona State University.
Known at the podium for his insight, wit and first-hand anecdotes, Alter offers an incisive, entertaining and always compelling view of national and world affairs, and how media and politics interact. His presentation is as fresh as the day’s headlines, but informed by a deep knowledge of history and a razor-sharp analytical mind.
Alter joined Newsweek as an associate editor in the Nation section in March 1983, and became media critic the following year. He was named a senior writer in February 1987 and a senior editor in September 1991. For two years prior to joining Newsweek, Alter was an editor at The Washington Monthly. He has also freelanced articles for such publications as The New Republic, Esquire, Slate, PARADE and The New York Times.
A Chicago native, Alter received his B.A. in history with honors from Harvard in 1979. Besides The Defining Moment and Between the Lines, he is the author of Selecting a President and the coeditor of Inside the System. He is married to Emily Lazar. They live in Montclair, New Jersey with their children.
Interested in booking Jonathan Alter to speak at your next event?
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- Between the Lines: Politics, Media and Society
- The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
- Reflections on the War on Terrorism
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