- Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of "The Oprah Winfrey Show", the highest rated talk show in television history. She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and the world's only black billionaire for three straight years.
- Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is an American film critic who was born in Brooklyn, New York. A reviewer for the "Los Angeles Times", he also provides regular reviews for "Morning Edition" on National Public Radio.
- Patt Morrison
Patt Morrison is a columnist for the "Los Angeles Times", host of the daily talk program "Patt Morrison" on 89.3 KPCC, and frequent commentator on National Public Radio. She co-hosted the "Life & Times" program on KCET-TV from 1993 to 2001. Her fashion trademark is wearing a variety of hats that match with the rest of her outfit, and she is never seen in public without wearing one. She identifies herself as a lacto vegetarian.
- Conan O'Brien
Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an Emmy-winning American comedian, writer and television personality best known as host of NBC's late-night talk/variety show "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". NBC has announced that O'Brien will take over for Jay Leno as host of "The Tonight Show" in 2009.
- Daniel Pipes
Daniel Pipes (born September 9, 1949) is an American historian and counter-terrori sm analyst who specializes in the Middle East. He has written or co-written 18 books, maintains a blog, and lectures around the world presenting his analysis of world trends. His work has attracted both admiration and criticism as a result of his view that Islamism is incompatible with democracy, freedom, multiculturalis m, and human rights.
- Eleanor Clift
ELEANOR CLIFT Washington power struggles can make for a confusing and opaque world. Eleanor Clift , a contributing editor at Newsweek and lucid writer on national politics and the influence of women in politics, penetrates this murky world to offer startling insights. As somebody who knows this world inside out, Eleanor Clift is often assigned to follow key stories is often assigned to follow key stories, such as presidential nomination and election campaigns.
- Nikki Finke
In 2007, Finke won the Los Angeles Press Club's Southern California Journalism Award for "Entertainment Journalist of the Year" with the judges commenting: "Reading Nikki Finke 's salaciously candid coverage of Hollywood and its inhabitants almost feels like a guilty pleasure. She mixes the news with fearless finger-wagging that's just fun to read no matter the subject. She tackles the industry monoliths without the kiddy gloves and she seems to have command of the beat."
- Marc Cooper
Marc Cooper is an American journalist, author, and blogger. He is currently a contributing editor to "The Nation". He also pens the popular "Dissonance" column for "LA Weekly". His writing has appeared in such publications as the "Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, The Christian Science Monitor, Playboy" and "Rolling Stone". He has also been television producer for PBS, CBS News, …
- David Hiller
David Hiller is a news executive. He is currently publisher, president and CEO of the "Los Angeles Times", which is owned by Tribune Publishing. Mr. Hiller has been at the center of recent battles over the editorial control of the "Times" news division, which have resulted in the resignation and firing of lead editors Jeffrey Johnson and Dean Baquet. Hiller has donated money to the Republican Party and its candidates, …
- David Sirota
David Sirota is the bestselling author of the books "Hostile Takeover" (2006) and "The Uprising" (2008). He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network - both nonpartisan organizations. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com.
- Michael Kinsley
Michael Kinsley (born March 9, 1951 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American political journalist, commentator television host and liberal pundit. Primarily active in print media as both a writer and editor, he also became known to television audiences as a co-host on "Crossfire". Kinsley has been a notable participant in the mainstream media's development of online content.
- Jane Mayer
Jane Mayer (born 1955 in New York City) is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for "The New Yorker" since 1995. In recent years, she has written extensive articles for that publication on Dick Cheney, the bin Laden family, and the US government's controversial policy of extraordinary rendition.
- Manohla Dargis
Manohla Dargis (born c. 1961) is one of the chief film critics for "The New York Times". She was formerly a film writer at the "Village Voice", the film critic for the "Los Angeles Times", and the editor of the film section at "LA Weekly". She has written for a variety of publications, including "Film Comment" and "Sight and Sound". Dargis grew up in Manhattan's East Village, and is a 1979 graduate of Hunter College High School.
- Brent Bozell
BRENT BOZELL, President of the Media Research Center: Well, you know, I'm institutionally sympathetic to the idea that a spouse should be off-limits if the spouses want to be off-limits, if the spouse isn't participating in the political process. In this case, you've got a spouse who is well-informed, well-educated, well-spoken and outspoken on the campaign trail campaigning on behalf of her husband. So absolutely she's fair game. Of course she is.
- Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist and author. A 1984 graduate of Harvard University, Goodman is best known as the principal host of Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now!" program, where she has been described by the Los Angeles Times as "radio's voice of the disenfranchised left". Coverage of the peace and human rights movements — and support of the independent media — are the hallmarks of her work.
- Max Boot
Max Boot (born 1969 in Moscow, Soviet Union) is an American author, editorialist, lecturer and military historian. He has been a prominent advocate for neoconservative foreign policy, once describing his own position as support for the use of "American might to promote American ideals" throughout the world. He is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a contributing editor to "The Weekly Standard", …
- Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon (1951-) is an American journalist, media critic and antiwar activist. A longtime associate of the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), Solomon is also the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts which works pro-actively to provide alternative sources for journalists. His weekly column, "Media Beat", has been in national syndication since 1992.
- Paul Conrad
Paul Conrad is one of the most distinguished political cartoonists in the world. He was chief editorial cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times from 1964 to 1993 and had been syndicated to hundreds of newspapers worldwide. He earned the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1964, 1971 and 1984. Conrad has also won two Overseas Press Club awards (1981 and 1970) and in 1988, …
- Tom O'Neil
Tom O'Neil is a showbiz journalist and television critic who often appears as a pundit on TV shows featuring pop culture content. He has also worked as a producer for the TV Land network, editorial director of magazine development for the Hearst Corporation, freelance writer for "Variety", "New York Times", …
- Joel Stein
Joel Stein (born 23 July 1971) is an American journalist. He is a columnist for the "Los Angeles Times" and a regular contributor to "TIME". Stein grew up in Edison, New Jersey and attended J.P. Stevens High School, where he wrote for and edited "Hawkeye", the student paper. He majored in English at Stanford and wrote a weekly column for "The Stanford Daily". He graduated in 1993 with a BA and an MA and moved to New York.
- Michael Ramirez
Michael Patrick Ramirez (born May 11, 1961) is an American Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist. His cartoons present a conservative viewpoint. Ramirez was born in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine, in 1984 with a bachelors degree. He has worked for "The Commercial Appeal" of Memphis for seven years and then for the "Los Angeles Times". In 1994, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.
- Rosa Brooks
Rosa Brooks is an op-ed columnist for the "Los Angeles Times" and a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Brooks' work has appeared in publications ranging from Harper's Magazine to the "Washington Post", and in 2005 she began a weekly column for the Los Angeles Times. Most of her columns focus on foreign policy, human rights, and national security issues. She is known for her edgy, satirical style.
- Ann Powers
Ann Powers (born 4 February, 1964) has been writing about popular music and society since the early 1980s. She is the author of "Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America" and coeditor of "Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap". A Seattle, Washington native, she has written for many music publications, and her work has been widely anthologized.
- Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan CBE (born June 21, 1948) is a British novelist.
- Doug Bandow
Douglas (Doug) Bandow is a former columnist with Copley News Service and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. He resigned in 2005 due a scandal involving payments for columns from lobbyist Jack Abramoff and wrote about it in the Los Angeles Times. He served as a Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and as a Senior Policy Analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President campaign. He is also a columnist for Antiwar.com.
- Dan Neil
Dan Neil is an automobile columnist for the "Los Angeles Times", noted for his one-of-a-kind reviews of automobiles, which blend technical expertise with offbeat humor and astute cultural observations. Neil won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2004 for his columns in the "Times". Neil was born in Pennsylvania but moved with his family to New Bern, N.C. when he was 4 years old.
- Susan Estrich
To learn the answers to questions like these, one need only look through some of the prolific writing of Susan Estrich -- politician, professor, lawyer and writer.
- Joe Leydon
Joseph Patrick Leydon (born August 22, 1952 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an award-winning film critic and historian. Currently a critic and correspondent for Variety, the "show business bible," and a contributing writer for MovieMaker magazine, he is the author of "Joe Leydon's Guide to Essential Movies You Must See" (Michael Wiese Productions), and host of http://movingpictureblog.blogspot.com/ and the website http://www.MovingPictureShow.com/.
- Dean Baquet
Dean P. Baquet (born in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American journalist. As of March 5, 2007, he was on the masthead of "The New York Times" as an assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief. Baquet was previously managing editor, then editor, of the "Los Angeles Times". From 1995 to 2000, he was national editor of "The New York Times". He is on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
- James Risen
James Risen is a reporter for "The New York Times" and previously the "Los Angeles Times". He has written or co-written several articles concerning United States government activities, as well as two books about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
- Borzou Daragahi
Borzou Daragahi (born c. 1969) is a longtime print and radio journalist and the former Baghdad bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. A U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, he was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of Iraq and led the bureau that was named a 2007 Pulitzer finalist for its Iraq coverage. He has also covered Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the wider Middle East. Before joining the Los Angeles Times in 2005, …
- Bill Plaschke
William "Bill" P. Plaschke (born September 6, 1958 in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American journalist who has written for the "Los Angeles Times" since 1987. He attended Ballard High School in Louisville. In 1980, he received a bachelor's degree in mass communications from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville in Edwardsville, Illinois. Currently, Plaschke is one of the panelists on the sports-themed show "Around the Horn" on ESPN.
- William Arkin
William M. Arkin (b. 1956) is an American political commentator, activist, journalist, blogger, and former United States Army soldier.
- Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn The Taj Mahal as Kitsch; the Editor and the Water-Walking Guru
- Karen Tumulty
Karen Tumulty (born 1955) is the "Time Magazine" National Political Correspondent based in Washington D.C., where she covers national political developments for the magazine. Tumulty graduated in 1977 from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in Journalism with high honors; she is an alumna of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority. She received an MBA from Harvard University in 1981. Tumulty is a native of San Antonio, Texas, …
- Paul Jacobs
Paul Jacobs (born February 1, 1977 in Washington, Pennsylvania) is an American organist. Jacobs studied both organ and harpsichord at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, performing the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach several times during his final semester as an undergraduate student, including once in an 18-hour non-stop marathon concert in Pittsburgh on the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, July 28, 2000.
- Tom Johnson
Wyatt Thomas ("Tom") Johnson is an American journalist and media executive, best known for serving as president of Cable News Network (CNN) during the 1990s and, before that, as publisher of the "Los Angeles Times" newspaper. Johnson was born in Macon, Georgia and graduated from Lanier High School. While in high school, he began working at the "Macon Telegraph" newspaper.
- Brian Grazer
Brian Grazer (born July 12, 1951 in Los Angeles, California) is an Oscar and Emmy Award-winning American film and television producer who founded Imagine Entertainment with partner Ron Howard. Together they have produced many acclaimed films, including "A Beautiful Mind" and "Apollo 13". Grazer also produced the 1994 film "The Cowboy Way", the live-action version of the holiday classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000), …
- Rick Perlstein
Rick Perlstein is the author of the New York Times bestseller Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (Scribner). Nixonland has been named the third favorite book of the year by the editors at Amazon.com and a New York Times notable book for 2008, and has been named on year-end "best of" lists by over a dozen publications.
- Jonathan Chait
Jonathan Chait (b. 1972) is a senior editor at "The New Republic" and a former assistant editor of "The American Prospect". He also writes a periodic column in the "Los Angeles Times". A graduate of the University of Michigan, he wrote for The "Michigan Daily" while in college. He began working at The New Republic in 1995. A liberal hawk, Chait supported the invasion of Iraq, but is a vocal critic of the Bush administration, …