Bio
Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter is a senior editor at Newsweek, where since 1991 he has written an acclaimed column on politics, history, media, and society at large.
He is also an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and three children.
Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson is the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, DC. He has been the chairman and CEO of CNN and the editor of TIME magazine.
He is the author of Steve Jobs (2011), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).
Mr. Isaacson was born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans. He is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his career at The Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune/States-Item. He joined TIME in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor and editor of new media before becoming the magazine’s 14th editor in 1996. He became chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.
He is chair emeritus of Teach for America, which recruits recent college graduates to teach in underserved communities. He was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate to serve as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other international broadcasts of the United States, a position he held until 2012. He is vice-chair of Partners for a New Beginning, a public-private group tasked with forging ties between the United States and the Muslim world. He is on the board of United Airlines, Tulane University, and the Overseers of Harvard University. From 2005-2007, after Hurricane Katrina, he was the vice-chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.
Aspen Ideas Festival: http://www.aspenideas.org/
Entering its ninth year, the Aspen Ideas Festival will gather some of the most interesting thinkers and leaders from around the US and abroad to discuss their work, the issues that inspire them, and their ideas. Presented by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, the Festival is unique in its dedication to dialogue and exchange, and in its commitment to bringing ideas to the public at large. The Festival is designed around a series of program “tracks," each of which offers a variety of discussions relevant to a certain topic area. The tracks offer participants the opportunity to focus on a particular area of interest during their time with us, or cover a lot of ground with a menu of diverse ideas across a number of topics.
He lives with his wife and daughter in Washington, DC.
David Maraniss
David Maraniss is an associate editor at the Washington Post and the author of "Barack Obama: The Story," which came out in June. His many previous books include "First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton," "Rome 1960: The Summer Olympics That Stirred the World," and biographies of Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente. His work at the Post has earned two Pulitzer Prizes, in 1993 and 2008.
Photo Credit: Linda Maraniss
Ron Suskind
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Ron Suskind has written some of America's most important works of nonfiction, framing national debates while exploring the complexities of human experience.
Mr. Suskind's latest book, "Confidence Men" (September, 2011), is a multi-layered narrative about the fall of the U.S. economy, the rise of Barack Obama, and the President's harrowing battle to take control of his White House and earn the confidence of the American people.
His previous works include the New York Times bestseller, "The Way of the World"(August, 2008), about the forces fighting the global "hearts and minds" struggle at a time when awesomely destructive weapons are available to the common man; "The One Percent Doctrine" (June, 2006), a signature work on how the U.S. government frantically improvised to fight a new kind of war after 9/11; "The Price of Loyalty, George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill"(Jan 2004), a sweeping tour of the inner workings of the American government in the modern era; and "A Hope in the Unseen, An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League" (Doubleday/Broadway, 1998) a critically-acclaimed bestseller that has redefined national debates on race, class and achievement.
In addition to his books, he often appears on network television and has been a contributor for The New York Times Magazine and Esquire. Mr. Suskind was the Wall Street Journal's senior national affairs reporter from 1993 until his departure in 2000, and won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. He currently lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Cornelia Kennedy Suskind, and is a distinguished visiting scholar at Dartmouth College.
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