Jonathan Alter

Jonathan Alter is a senior editor and columnist at Newsweek, where he has worked for more than 20 years. He is also a contributing correspondent to NBC News, where he appears on NBC Nightly News, Today, MSNBC and CNBC. He also frequently gives speeches about current events, Franklin D. Roosevelt and other themes. His book, The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (2006), was a national bestseller and praised by critics.

Alter has earned many awards for his political columns, 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 team of Newsweek reporters and editors awarded the prestigious National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1993, 2002, 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 from the National Association of Black Journalists. Alter also received the 1994 Clarion Award from Women in Communications for Best Magazine Opinion Column, and the 1993 National Headliner Award for Consistently Outstanding Feature Column.

His many awards for media criticism include the 1987 Lowell Mellett Award and two New York State Bar Association Media Awards. In 1995, Alter was selected as one of the nation's most influential media critics in a survey of leading media executives and scholars published by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University. He also won the 1987 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Reporting, and a Mentoring USA Award for encouraging mentoring. In 1993, Alter was a Fellow of the Japan Society in Tokyo and in 1997 he was the Ferris Visiting Professor of Press and Politics at Princeton University.

Alter is married to Emily Lazar, and they live in New Jersey with their children.