Eric Alterman

Eric Alterman
Alterman in 2012
Born (1960-01-14) January 14, 1960
Alma mater
Occupation
  • Journalist
  • author
  • professor
Children 1

Eric Alterman (born January 14, 1960) is an American historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. He is currently CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College, the media columnist for The Nation, and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress as well as the author of ten books. His weblog named Altercation was originally hosted by MSNBC.com from 2002 to 2006, moved to Media Matters for America until December 2008, and is now hosted by The Nation. He writes from a neoliberal viewpoint.

Education

He earned a BA in history and government from Cornell University, an MA in international relations from Yale University, and a PhD in U.S. history from Stanford University.[1]

Career

Journalism

Alterman began his journalism career in 1983, freelancing originally for The Nation, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Harper's, Le Monde diplomatique, and later, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, among others, while working as a senior fellow for the World Policy Institute in New York City and Washington, DC. Shortly after that he became the Washington Correspondent for Mother Jones, and soon thereafter Rolling Stone, before returning to The Nation as a columnist in 1995. Alterman has also been a contributing editor to ELLE, and a regular columnist for Worth and the London Sunday Express. and the Guardian.

Television

Alterman was hired by MSNBC in 1996, both appearing as a commentator on the cable channel and writing a column posted on its website. In 2002 MSNBC engaged him to create the blog daily Altercation, one of the first blogs hosted by a mainstream media news organization.[2] In September 2006, after a ten-year association, Alterman and MSNBC parted ways. Media Matters for America hired him as a Senior Fellow and agreed to host Altercation, effective September 18, 2006. Regular contributors to his blog Altercation included sportswriter Charlie Pierce and historian and military officer Robert Bateman. On December 22, 2008 Alterman announced that Altercation would be moving to The Nation's website in 2009, and would appear on a less regular basis than its previous Monday through Friday schedule.[3] He has also worked as a history consultant to HBO Films.

Books

He published his first book, Sound & Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy, which won the 1992 George Orwell Award, while studying for his doctorate in US history in Stanford in 1992. Alterman also published a number of other books, including the national best-sellers What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News (2003, 2004), and The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America (2004). The others include: Who Speaks for America? Why Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy, (1998), and the second edition of Sound & Fury (2000). His It Ain't No Sin to be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen (1999, 2001), won the 1999 Stephen Crane Literary Award. In September 2004, Viking Press published When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and its Consequences –- a version of his doctoral dissertation –– on lies of major consequence told by presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.

His seventh book, published in 2008 by Viking was called Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America.[4] Also in 2008, Alterman published a lengthy essay in the New Yorker on the decline of American newspapers and the future role of new media news sites.[5] His eighth book, Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama,[6] was published in early 2011. It was an extension of a lengthy article he had published in the Summer of 2010 in The Nation. In 2012, Alterman published his ninth book, The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama, a history of postwar American liberalism. Three years later, in 2015, he published his tenth book the ebook and paperback on demand, Inequality in One City: Bill de Blasio and the New York Experiment.

Honors and awards

During the course of his career, Alterman has been recognized for the following honors and awards: Winner, Mirror Award for "Best Commentary," 2017 Finalist, Mirror Award for "Best Commentary," 2016 Selected, Schusterman Fellow, Brandeis University, 2016 Elected to be Fellow of the Society of American Historians, 2016 Finalist, Mirror Award for "Best Commentary, Traditional" 2014 Media Fellow, Hoover Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA June 2013 Finalist, Mirror Award for "Best Commentary, Digital" and "Best Commentary, Traditional," 2013 Finalist, Mirror Award for "Best Commentary, Traditional, 2012 Winner, Mirror Award for "Best Commentary, Digital" and Finalist, "Best Commentary, Traditional," 2011 Finalist, Mirror Award for "Best Commentary, Digital," 2010 Finalist, Mirror Awards for "Best Single Article, Traditional" and "Best Commentary, Digital" 2009 Winner, Stephen Crane Literary Award for It Ain't No Sin to be Glad You're Alive, 1999 Winner, 1993 George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language for Sound & Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy

Media criticism

He is perhaps best known for his media criticism, which is the subject of two of his books. He writes a political column for The Nation and a weekly column for the Center for American Progress website. In contrast to conservative media commentators, Alterman argues that the press is biased against liberals rather than biased in their favor. He was called "the most honest and incisive media critic writing today" in the National Catholic Reporter, and the author of "the smartest and funniest political journal out there," in The San Francisco Chronicle. In 2008, Alterman also became a regular columnist to the Jewish magazine Moment, where he wrote regularly about Jewish issues. In 2009, he also became a regular contributor to The Daily Beast.[7] In 2011, he gave up the column on Jewish issues Moment and began a new one in The (Jewish) Forward.

Alterman has taught journalism at both New York University and Columbia University. Since the fall of 2004, he has been a Professor of English at Brooklyn College, where he teaches courses in media and media history.[8] In 2007 he was named a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College and Professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.[9] He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress,[10] and remains one at the World Policy Institute in New York.[11]

Politics

Alterman was and remains a critic of Ralph Nader for Nader's actions in the 2000 US presidential election, arguing that Nader is to blame for the election of George W. Bush because of vote splitting.[12] He has called Nader "Bush's Useful Idiot,"[13] myopic,[14] and a deluded megalomaniac.[15] In the documentary An Unreasonable Man, he is quoted as saying:

The man needs to go away. I think he needs to live in a different country. He's done enough damage to this one. Let him damage somebody else's now.[16]

Alterman has also criticized Steve Jobs for his avarice and for failing to give any of his wealth to the poor. Jobs died with more than $8 billion in various bank accounts and with shareholdings in a tax-free fund with assets of more than $70 billion. He has also accused Apple of business practices that ultimately result in the misery of Chinese workers.[17]

He appears in the award-winning documentary film on Lee Atwater, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. In it, hehe says, "Race is poison, but it is poison that works for their side. People vote their fears and not their hopes, and Lee understood that." He also appears in Robert Greenwald's documentary Outfoxed. His critics have called him a member of the Israel lobby.[18] Alterman notes that his views on Israel are attacked by the left for being too pro-Israel and right, such as The Weekly Standard, for not supporting Israel enough.[19]

Major works

  • Sound & Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy (1992, 1993, 2000) ISBN 978-0-8014-8639-5
  • Who Speaks for America? Why Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy, (1998) ISBN 978-0-8014-3574-4
  • It Ain't No Sin to be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen (1999, 2001)
  • What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News (2003, 2004) ISBN 978-0-465-00177-4
  • The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America (2004) ISBN 0-14-303442-1
  • When presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and its Consequences, (2004, 2005) ISBN 978-0-670-03209-9
  • Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Most Important Ideals (2008, 2009) ISBN 978-0-14-311522-9
  • Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama (2011) ISBN 978-1-56858-659-5
  • The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama with Kevin Mattson (2012) 978-0-67-002343-1
  • Inequality and One City: Bill de Blasio and the New York Experiment, Year One (2015) ISBN 978-1-940489-19-3

References

  1. ↑ "Eric Alterman". Americanprogress.org. Retrieved 2010-04-16.
  2. ↑ Eric Alterman (September 11, 2006). "I'm Fired". Retrieved 2006-09-11.
  3. ↑ Alterman, Eric (December 22, 2008). "We're Movin' On; We'll Soon Be Gone ..." Media Matters for America. Archived from the original on December 24, 2008. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
  4. ↑ "Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Post-Bush America". March 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
  5. ↑ "Out of Print: The Death and Life of the American Newspaper". March 31, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-07.
  6. ↑ "Kabuki Democracy—and How to Fix It". Retrieved 10 August 2017 – via The Nation.
  7. ↑ "The Daily Beast". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 10 August 2017.
  8. ↑ "New Faculty Bring Worlds of Knowledge to Brooklyn College". August 26, 2004. Retrieved 2007-06-05.
  9. ↑ "CUNY Board Names Alterman Distinguished Prof at Brooklyn College". July 10, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
  10. ↑ "Eric Alterman, Senior Fellow". Center for American Progress. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
  11. ↑ World Policy Institute. "Eric Alterman, Senior Fellow". Archived from the original on July 6, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
  12. ↑ Eric Alterman (February 8, 2006). "Dancing days are here again". Retrieved 2007-02-26.
  13. ↑ Eric Alterman (September 16, 2004). "Bush's Useful Idiot". The Nation.
  14. ↑ Eric Alterman (March 22, 2001). "Tweedledee, Indeed". The Nation.
  15. ↑ Eric Alterman (June 6, 2004). "Phew". MSNBC. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
  16. ↑ Democracy Now (February 5, 2007). "Ralph Nader on Why He Might Run in 2008, the Iraq War & the New Documentary "An Unreasonable Man"". Retrieved 2007-02-26.
  17. ↑ Eric Alterman (November 9, 2011). "The Agony and Ecstasy—and 'Disgrace'—of Steve Jobs". Thenation.com. Retrieved 2011-11-16.
  18. ↑ What's on a man's mind. Interview with Reihan Salam. BloggingHeads.tv Recorded March 13, 2009. Posted March 16, 2009.
  19. ↑ Eric Alterman (July 27, 2006). "The Impossible Dream: Honest Debate About Israel". Huffington Post.
  • Eric Alterman.com official website
  • Eric Alterman on IMDb
  • Works by or about Eric Alterman in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
  • "Eric Alterman collected news and commentary". The New York Times.
  • Appearances on C-SPAN
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