About Richard Reeves
Richard Reeves, Senior Lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, is an author and syndicated columnist whose column has appeared in more than 100 newspapers since 1979. A new column also appears on Yahoo! News each Friday. He has received dozens of awards for his work in print, television and film.
Educated as a mechanical engineer, Richard Reeves began his career in journalism at the age of 23, founding the Phillipsburg Free Press in Phillipsburg, N.J. He has been a correspondent for the Newark Evening News and the New York Herald Tribune and was the Chief Political Correspondent of The New York Times. He has also written for numerous other publications, becoming National Editor and Columnist for Esquire and New York Magazine along the way. Named a "literary lion" by the New York Public Library, Reeves has won a number of print journalism awards and has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and juror.
In 1975, Reeves published his first book, A Ford, not a Lincoln. His President Kennedy: Profile of Power is now considered the authoritative work on the 35th president, has won several national awards and was named the Best Non-Fiction Book of 1993 by Time and Book of the Year by Washington Monthly.
Reeves has also worked extensively on television and in film. He was Chief Correspondent on "Frontline". He has made six television films and won all of television's major documentary awards: the Emmy for "Lights, Camera . . . Politics!" for ABC News; the Columbia-DuPont Award for "Struggle for Birmingham" for PBS; and the George Foster Peabody Award for "Red Star over Khyber" for PBS. He has also appeared in two feature films, "Dave" and "Seabiscuit".
In 1998, he won the Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science Association for distinguished contributions to the understanding of American politics. He was the Goldman Lecturer on American Civilization and Government at the Library of Congress that year; the lectures were published by Harvard University Press under the title What the People Know: Freedom and the Press.
In 2007, W.W. Norton will publish his biography — and re-creation of the experiments — of Ernest Rutherford, the Nobel prizewinning physicist, who was born on the frontier of New Zealand in 1871 and went on to become the greatest experimental scientist of his time, discovering the unimagined subatomic world we now know and then splitting the atom he first envisioned. He is currently working in the United States and Europe on a history of the Berlin Airlift, scheduled for publication in 2008.
Positions
- Chief Correspondent, Frontline, PBS, 1981-1984.
- Panelist, We Interrupt This Week, PBS, 1978
- National Editor and Columnist, Esquire, 1976-1980.
- National Editor and Columnist, New York Magazine, 1971-1976.
- Chief Political Correspondent, The New York Times, 1966-1971.
- Correspondent, The New York Herald Tribune, 1965-66.
- Correspondent, The Newark Evening News, 1963-65.
- Editor, Phillipsburg (N.J.) Free Press, 1961-63.
- Engineer, Ingersoll-Rand Co., 1960-61.
Publications
- President Nixon: Alone in the White House, Simon and Schuster, 2001
- What The People Know: Freedom and the Press, Harvard University, 1998
- Do the Media Govern?, Sage, 1997 (with Shanto Iyengar)
- Family Travels: Around the World in 30 Days, Andrews and McMeel, 1997
- Character Above All, Vol. 4, Simon and Schuster Audio, 1996
- Running in Place, Andrews and McMeel, 1996
- President Kennedy: Profile of Power, Simon and Schuster, 1993
- The Reagan Detour, Simon and Schuster, 1984
- Passage to Peshawar, Simon and Schuster, 1983
- American Journey; Travelling with Tocqueville, Simon and Schuster, 1982
- Jet Lag, Andrews and McMeel, 1981
- Convention, Harcourt Brace, 1977
- Old Faces of 1976, Harper and Row, 1976
- A Ford, not a Lincoln, Harcourt Brace, 1975
- Hundreds of magazine articles on public affairs for most major American magazines, including particularly New York Magazine, The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine.
Films
- "Plowing Up a Storm", PBS, 1986
- "Red Star Over Afghanistan", PBS, 1984
- "Struggle for Birmingham", PBS, 1984
- "American Journey", PBS, 1983
- Lights, Camera . . . Politics", ABC, 1980
- "TV on Trial", PBS, 1978
Awards
- Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science Association, 1998
- Goldman Lecturer, Library of Congress, 1997
- PEN Non-Fiction Book of the Year, 1993
- Washington Monthly Book of the Year, 1993
- Christophers Book of the Year, 1983
- Columbia-Peabody Award, 1984
- George Foster Peabody Award, 1984
- Christopher Award, 1982
- National Emmy, 1980
- Silver Gavel, American Bar Association, 1978
- Literary Lion, New York Public Library
- Lifetime Achievement Award, National Society of Newspaper Columnists
- Honorary Degrees: Stevens Institute of Technology; Drew University; St. Joseph's College
Teaching
- Visiting Professor of Journalism, Annenberg School for Communication at USC
- Regents Professor of Political Science, UCLA 1992-94
- Political Writing, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 1974-1976
- Hunter College, Government, 1970-1972
Education
- ME, Stevens Institute of Technology,1960
TV/Film Appearances
- Seabiscuit, as Radio Reporter Joe, 2003
- Dave, as Himself, 1993
Links
- USC Annenberg School for Communication
- Reeves Blog at USC Annenberg School for Communication
- Richard Reeves at Simon and Schuster
- Richard Reeves at Amazon.com
- Richard Reeves at Barnes and Noble
- Richard Reeves at Yahoo! News Op-Ed
- Richard Reeves at Universal Press Syndicate
- Richard Reeves' Personal Papers at JFK Library
Latest Column
Whatever They Say, It's The Money!
WASHINGTON — When they say, "It's not the money ..." — it's the money!
After all is said and almost done, the numbers that are dragging Hillary Clinton to the end of her campaign are not delegate counts but dollar amounts. She is already more than $20 million in debt, and her campaign is costing something like $1 million a day.
Column Archive
Mc Cain, JFK, and the Health of Presidents
NEW YORK — A lot of smart people have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how and why President John F. Kennedy seemed to evolve from an indecisive fool in launching the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 into the cool and calm commander defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.
It's Race, Stupid!
LOS ANGELES — Face it: "Electability" is just another way of saying Barack Obama is black. The overuse of the word right now is a way of assuring voters, Democrat and Republican, that if they do not want or could not abide a black president, they are not alone.
Enough Already With The Fake Debates
LOS ANGELES — This campaign is SO over. It is hard to imagine a debate worse than the Clinton-Obama stand-up on Wednesday night in Philadelphia. In case you missed them between what seemed like a hundred commercials, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the shorter white one, and Sen. Barack Obama, the taller black one, answered (or endured) a road-show production of "Dumb and Dumber," starring Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.
Hillary Clinton: The Big Mistake
LOS ANGELES — Last Thursday, about a year too late, I read the "2008 Delegate Selection Rules for the Democratic National Convention." Not a fun read, I must add, which may be the reason Sen. Hillary Clinton, or her people, and most of the press, did not read or understand its 25 dense pages.
On the Matter of Torture
LOS ANGELES — The order from the commander in chief regarding torture of prisoners was clear: "It has been recognized at all times that this manner of interrogating human beings, of putting them under torture, produces nothing good. The unfortunates say whatever comes into their heads, and everything they think we want to know."
Is Mc Cain the Real Mc Coy?
LOS ANGELES — I would guess that Sen. John McCain has about a 1-in-3 chance of being the next president of the United States. It's a tough slog when you're running under the crest of one of the worst presidencies we've ever had — in the middle of a recession, and a hateful war and hated occupation he says we will stick with even if it takes a hundred years.
Hearing The Obama Speech
LOS ANGELES — If Barack Obama is elected president, his speech on race in America will be remembered as one of the greatest in the country's history. If he loses, it will still be remembered as a terrific speech, an astonishing display of grace under pressure.
To Hell With The Fallen Hero
NEW YORK — How intellectual, how literate, how urbane is Manhattan? Well, where else can you find people at lunch speaking Latin?
The Way The Press Really Works
LOS ANGELES — "Media 101 With Professor Obama" was the headline the Los Angeles Times put over a short story about Barack Obama's walk to the back of his campaign plane to scold reporters for going "squishy" on Hillary Clinton.
Ah, To Be Young And In Politics!
LOS ANGELES — You couldn't ask for much better than this — at least if you're a reporter. Depending on their personal preferences, Republicans or Democrats might have their problems with Tuesday's results in Texas and Ohio, but for those of us looking for trouble — and that is our business — there is something to be said for a Democratic tie (of sorts), with the Clintons controlling the old guard and Barack Obama leading the new party.
Why Hillary Stumbled
LOS ANGELES — The "fellas" who worked for Ronald Reagan — he called them that because he couldn't remember their names — rarely saw the boss angry. But James Lake, a campaign press secretary, did, just once.
The Streets are Alive with the Sound of Politics
LOS ANGELES — A French visitor was amazed to see that in every tavern he visited — and "bar-room," a new word to him — Americans of all classes, workmen and rich men, were talking and arguing about politics. Elections and candidates, and ideas, too, seemed to be the entertainment of America.
The Election and The Press: Great Job!
LOS ANGELES — Yes, I still use AOL as my home page, probably because I'm too lazy to move on. And, yes, I start many days growling in hazy anger because folks in cyberspace seem to think Britney Spears is to the United States in 2008 what Winston Churchill was to England in 1940. But last Wednesday, I was even madder than usual when the first headline that popped up was: "Media Gets It Wrong Again."
The Campaign Begins To Look More Ordinary
LOS ANGELES — Let it be known that the old French maxim that the more things change, the more they stay the same applies in the United States as well, at least as one considers this presidential campaign so far.
An Election To Try Men's Souls
PALO ALTO, Calif. — These are the times, this is the election, that will reveal men's (and women's) souls.
As The World Turns: Cell Phones Replace Letters
PARIS — My mother, Dorothy Reeves, was a teller at the Trust Company of New Jersey, the big bank where Bergen Avenue ran into Journal Square in Jersey City. That was the reason when I first saw an automated teller machine, I vowed never to touch one, because they would inevitably throw tellers out of work.
McCain: The Last Man Standing
BERLIN — It was a distinct pleasure to be back in Berlin on the night Sen. John McCain won the New Hampshire Republican primary and was being hailed coast-to-coast as his party's front-runner. That may be a dubious distinction, but for me it seemed vindication for a prediction I had made right here early last September.
