Jeffrey Greenfield (born June 10, 1943) is an American television journalist[2] and author.
Jeff Greenfield | |
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Born | Jeffrey Greenfield June 10, 1943 New York City, U.S. |
Alma mater | University of Wisconsin Yale Law School |
Occupation(s) | Television journalist, author |
Notable credit | CBS Evening News Correspondent (2007–2011) |
Title | Senior Political Correspondent |
Spouses |
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Children | 2 |
Website | www |
He was born in New York City, to Benjamin and Helen Greenfield.[3][4] He grew up in Manhattan and graduated in 1960 from the Bronx High School of Science.
In 1964 he graduated with honors, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Cardinal.[4] While at the university, Greenfield was inducted into the Iron Cross (Secret Society).[4] In 1966, Greenfield graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale Law School, where he was a Note and Comment editor of the Yale Law Journal.[4]
Greenfield was hired as a speechwriter for Senator Robert F. Kennedy, assisting with RFK's speech, "On the Mindless Menace of Violence".[5] He worked on the 1968 Presidential campaign of Kennedy. Greenfield worked as chief speechwriter for New York Mayor John Lindsay.[4]
Greenfield worked for seven years with political consultant David Garth.[4]
Over the course of his career, Greenfield has reported primarily on domestic politics and the media, and occasionally on culture. He appeared on the Firing Line television program as early as 1968. He was the host of the national public television series "CEO Exchange," featuring in-depth interviews with high-profile chief executive officers, for five seasons. He served as media commentator for CBS News from 1979 to 1983 and as political and media analyst for ABC News from 1983 to 1997, often appearing on the Nightline program. He served as a senior analyst at CNN from 1998 to 2007. On May 1, 2007, Greenfield returned to CBS News, where he served as a senior political correspondent until April 2011.[6] He hosted PBS's "Need to Know" from May 7, 2010, to June 28, 2013. [7][8] More recently he has done political commentary on NBC Nightly News.
He has also written or contributed to 11 books and has written for Time, The New York Times, National Lampoon, Slate, and POLITICO Magazine.[9] He wrote one novel, which is about the Electoral College.
Greenfield has received five Emmy Awards,[10] two for his reporting from South Africa (1985 and 1990) and one for a profile of H. Ross Perot (1992). Then Everything Changed was a finalist for the 2011 Sidewise Award for Alternate History, Long Form.
Greenfield has been married three times.
Before joining CNN, Greenfield was a political and media analyst for ABC News (1983-97), appearing primarily on "Nightline" and delivering weekly commentaries for "World News" Sunday. Previously, he was the media commentator for CBS News (1979-83). Greenfield has also appeared on William F. Buckley's "Firing Line" and PBS' "We Interrupt This Week." He was the anchor of PBS' "CEOExchange," a limited-run series, for five seasons.
I was basing this on what they had done during the big controversy in 1962 when the steel companies raised their prices and President Kennedy felt they had broken their word to him. This was all about keeping down steel prices and damping down inflation, so the Kennedy administration and Robert Kennedy in particular used the power they had in a way that would have been highly, highly controversial had it become known. They were using tax returns of the steel executives and they were threatening anti-trust actions. So I extrapolated from that, if that's what they did to stop the steel price increases, I think they would have used every means fair and not so fair to keep the story from bringing him down.
In June, he wed Dena Sklar, a former associate director at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. And Greenfield tells us he's writing a novel, a satire of the media titled 'Jackpot', due out next year.
External videos | |
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Booknotes interview with Greenfield on Oh, Waiter! One Order of Crow, July 22, 2001, C-SPAN | |
Presentation by Greenfield on Then Everything Changed, March 11, 2011, C-SPAN | |
After Words interview with Greenfield on Then Everything Changed, April 9, 2011, C-SPAN | |
Presentation by Greenfield on If Kennedy Lived, October 25, 2013, C-SPAN |
Media related to Jeff Greenfield at Wikimedia Commons