Jonathan Alter

Jonathan Alter is a columnist and senior editor for Newsweek magazine, where he has worked since 1983. A Chicago native and resident of Montclair, N.J., he is also a contributing correspondent to NBC News, where since 1996 he has appeared regularly on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. In addition, he can be heard frequently on cancelled "Imus in the Morning," and The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio.

He is the author of The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, published by Simon & Schuster in 2006. For a decade in the 1980s, Alter was Newsweek's media critic, where he was among the first in the mainstream media to break tradition and hold other news organizations accountable for their coverage, a precursor to the role later played by blogs.

When Newsweek launched his wide-ranging column in 1991, it was the first time the magazine allowed regular political commentary in the magazine, other than on the back page. After the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, during which Alter was a consultant to MTV, he was among a small group of reporters and columnists who had regular access to Clinton, though he was far from a reliable supporter, particularly during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. "Alter bites me in the ass sometimes, but at least he knows what we're trying to do," Clinton was quoted as saying in the book "Media Circus" by The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz.

Alter achieved some notoriety on Election Night 2000. During the evening, he went on NBC News to break the story of a problem with "butterfly ballots" in Palm Beach County, Florida, where many voters intending to vote for Al Gore ended up mistakenly voting for third party candidate Pat Buchanan. In the wee hours, on set with Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert, he enraged conservatives by saying that recounts were "more art than science" and predicting that the Florida election was headed to court. They felt he placed too much weight on Gore's popular vote victory over George W. Bush.

While his column has long been moderately and unpredictably liberal, he became a sometimes fierce critic of President Bush, with a particular emphasis on his lack of accountability and his position on embryonic stem cell research. Alter, who is a cancer survivor, has written and spoken occasionally about his own bout with lymphoma and experience with an adult stem-cell transplant.

"The Defining Moment," which was reviewed respectfully, surprised some critics with its depiction of how close the United States came to dictatorship when Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1933.
Alter serves on the Board of Directors of DonorsChoose.