Jonathan Alter
Senior Editor and Columnist, Newsweek

Since 1991, Senior Editor Jonathan Alter has written a widely acclaimed Newsweek column that examines politics, media, and social and global issues. Alter is also an originator and author of the weekly, “Conventional Wisdom Watch,” which uses up, down, and sideways arrows to measure and lampoon the news. As an editor, he helps shape the magazine’s overall news coverage.

Alter has covered the last six presidential campaigns for Newsweek. He frequently interviews American presidents and other world leaders, regularly breaks news and has authored more than 50 Newsweek cover stories. Over the years, he has written extensively about party politics, patriotism, anti-Semitism, weapons of mass destruction, at-risk children, and a wide variety of other issues.

His new book, The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, was published by Simon and Schuster in May 2006.

Since 1996, Alter has also been a contributing correspondent for NBC News, where he appears regularly on all NBC broadcasts including, “Today,” “NBC Nightly News,” NBC News specials, MSNBC, and CNBC. In spring 1997, Alter was the Ferris Visiting Professor of Press and Politics at Princeton University.

Alter has earned many awards for his political columns, including the prize from the National Headliner Awards for Special Column on One Subject on behalf of 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 for General Excellence in 1993, 2002, and 2004. He received the john Bartlow Martin Award in 2001 for his reporting on the death penalty. Alter also received the 1994 Clarion Award from Women in Communications for Best Magazine Opinion, and the 1993 National Headliner Award for Consistently Outstanding Feature Column.

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 been a freelance writer for such publications as The New Republic, Esquire, and The New York Times.

A Chicago native, Alter received his B.A. in history with honors from Harvard in 1979. He is coauthor of Selecting a President (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux) and the coeditor of Inside the System (Prentice Hall). He is married to Emily Lazar. They live in New Jersey with their children.