Jonathan Alter is the author of two New York Times best-sellers, The Promise: President Obama, Year One and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope and a weekly columnist for Bloomberg View. Before Bloomberg View, Alter spent 28 years as a correspondent, editor and columnist for Newsweek where he covered seven presidential elections and authored more than 50 cover stories.
Known at the podium for his insight, wit and first-hand anecdotes, Alter offers a unique behind-the-scenes take on life inside the Obama White House, analyzing where the President has succeeded and failed. His presentation is as fresh as the day’s headlines, but informed by a deep knowledge of history and a razor-sharp analytical mind offering audiences the knowledge and information they need to make informed decisions that will affect our country’s future.
Alter frequently interviews American presidents and other world leaders, regularly breaks news, and has written extensively over the years about politics, media, education, terrorism, anti-Semitism, at-risk children, national service and a wide variety of other issues. In 2004, Alter wrote the first cover story on Obama in a national magazine, one of several he has authored on the president.
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 helped shape the magazine’s overall news coverage.
Since joining NBC News and MSNBC in 1996, Alter has appeared on all NBC broadcasts including Today, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, NBC News specials, and is a frequent analyst on Hardball with Chris Matthews. He is also a regular commentator on The Rachel Maddow Show, the Ed Show, Andrea Mitchell Reports, and other MSNBC shows. On Election Night 2000, Alter went on the air to break the story about the confusing “butterfly ballots” in Palm Beach County, Florida that shaped the outcome of the election. Alter has appeared on The Colbert Report, as well as Late Night with David Letterman, Real Time with Bill Maher, and the documentary Waiting for Superman, among
others.
Alter is the recipient of two honorary degrees and a dozen major journalism awards including first prize from the National Headliner Awards for Special Column on One Subject for a series of columns on life after 9/11. He was also part of the teams of Newsweek reporters and editors awarded the prestigious National Magazine Award in 1993, 2002, and 2004. He received the John Bartlow Martin Award in 2001 for his reporting on the death penalty and first place for commentary in 2007 for a story on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. from the National Association of Black Journalists. His many awards for media criticism include the Lowell Mellett Award and two New York State Bar Association Media Awards. He also won the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Reporting.
He has been a Fellow of the Japan Society in Tokyo (1993), the Ferris Visiting Professor of Press and Politics at Princeton University (1997), and the Rhodes Visiting Professor at Arizona State University (2009). An even greater honor was throwing out the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field in 2010.
Prior to joining Newsweek Alter was an editor at The Washington Monthly. He has also freelanced articles for such publications as The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, Esquire, Slate, and Parade.
A Chicago native, Alter received his B.A. in history with honors from Harvard in 1979. In addition to The Promise and The Defining Moment, he is the author of Between the Lines: A View Inside American Politics, People, and Culture (a collection of his columns), co-author of Selecting a President and the co-editor of Inside the System.
Jonathan Alter lives in Montclair, New Jersey with his wife, Emily Lazar, and their three children.
