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Joe Conason

Fellow

Prior to The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund, Joe Conason worked as investigative editor at The American Prospect magazine for two years. For the past 15 years, Conason has written a popular political column for The New York Observer. Creators Syndicate distributes his column nationally. He served as the Manhattan weekly's executive editor from 1992 to 1997. Since 1998, he has also written a column that is among the most widely-read features on Salon.com. A winner of the New York Press Club's Byline Award, he has covered every American presidential election since 1980. He appears frequently as a commentator on television and radio.

He is the author of Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth (St. Martin's, 2003), a New York Times and Amazon.com bestseller, and co-author (with Gene Lyons) of The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (St. Martin's, 2000), which appeared on both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists. Conason co-produced a 2004 documentary film, The Hunting of the President, which was based on the book and was selected as a special screening by the festival director at the Sundance Film Festival.

Conason began his career as a reporter for the East Boston Community News, a small neighborhood newspaper, in 1976. From there he went on to join The Real Paper, an alternative weekly published in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a staff writer. He covered environmental, racial, and political issues for both papers.

From 1978 to 1990, he worked for The Village Voice as a columnist, staff writer and national correspondent. During his twelve years at the Voice, he covered beats ranging from national political campaigns, City Hall scandals and the Iran-contra affair to major foreign stories in the Philippines and China. In 1985, he co-authored the Voice exposé of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos's hidden Manhattan real estate holdings. That worldwide scoop led to Congressional hearings, and provoked the election that preceded the Philippine dictator's overthrow.

Prior to joining the Observer in 1992, he spent two years as editor-at-large for Condé Nast's Details magazine. During the Clinton administration, his investigative reporting on the Whitewater affair and the Office of Independent Counsel for The Nation and the New York Observer brought him national media attention. He revealed the existence of the "Arkansas Project," a secret, multi-million-dollar effort funded by a conservative Pittsburgh billionaire to find or invent negative material about the Clintons. In 2004, Conason was one of the first journalists to delve into the background and finances of the so-called "Swift-Boat Veterans for Truth" and its campaign against John Kerry for Salon.com.

Conason graduated from Brandeis University in 1975 with honors in history. He was born in New York City, where he lives today with his wife, Elizabeth Wagley, and their two children.

Selected articles:

Call the G.O.P.'s Bailout Bluff
Column | The New York Observer | September 30, 2008

McCain proves he's unfit to serve
Column | Salon | September 26, 2008

A Weathervane, Not A Leader
Column | The New York Observer | September 26, 2008

The corporate financiers are wrong
Column | Salon | September 19, 2008

The Florida-Michigan Farce
Column | The New York Observer | May 27, 2008

A truth teller who deserves justice
Column | Salon | April 4, 2008



Will we see a Clinton-Obama ticket?
Appearance | BigThink| March 7, 2008

Read the rest of Joe Conason's Salon columns.

Read the rest of Joe Conason's New York Observer columns.

WEBSITE: joeconason.com

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Salvation Boulevard

A novel

By Larry Beinhart

From the Edgar Award-winning novelist and author of Wag the Dog and The Librarian comes a new mystery novel about a private investigator and a case that tests his courage, character and soul. The victim is an atheist professor, the main suspect—who has confessed and is in custody—a Muslim foreign student, the defense attorney a Jew and the detective a born-again Christian. The New York Times says of Beinhart, "The man can really write."

Read glowing reviews of the book in the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Diego Union Tribune. More


Clive Stafford Smith on PBS Documentary

October 16 - November 20 | PBS Affiliates
Watch Nation Books author Clive Stafford Smith in a new PBS documentary, Torturing Democracy. Stafford Smith is the author of Eight o' Clock Ferry to the Windward Side and founder of the legal charity, Reprieve, whose clients include prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

November 23 | 10 am
Amy Alexander at Watergate Conference
(Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.)
Listen to Institute Fellow Amy Alexander talk with fellow panelists about how bloggers are changing politics. This event is part of the National Association of Black Journalists' Watergate Conference on Political and Congressional Reporting: Did Politics Change the Media or Did Media Change Politics? MORE

December 7 | 4 pm
Gary Younge Pays Tribute to Studs Terkel
(Great Hall, Cooper Union, NYC)
Institute Fellow Gary Younge will be one of the luminaries paying tribute to the life of legendary oral historian and activist Studs Terkel, who died on October 31 at the age of 96. The event will be open to the public and free of charge. MORE

December 8
The Nation Institute Annual Dinner Gala
(Metropolitan Pavilion, NYC)
The Nation Institute's Annual Gala Dinner is Monday, December 8 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York. Special guests include Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood; comedian Lewis Black; and Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher of The Nation. MORE

January 15 | 8:30 am
Deepa Fernandes Wins North Star News Prize
(4 Times Square, NYC)
Institute Fellow Deepa Fernandes is one of three winners of the North Star News Prize, which recognizes people of color who have made outstanding contributions to journalism, media and communications, and public understanding of the struggle for social justice. MORE


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