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Wolf Blitzer (born March 22, 1948 in Buffalo, New York) is an American journalist and author. He has been a CNN reporter since 1990. Blitzer is currently the host of the newscast The Situation Room and the Sunday talk show Late Edition. Blitzer previously hosted Wolf Blitzer Reports, which was replaced by The Situation Room.

Biography

Blitzer, whose first name is his maternal grandfather's name, grew up in Buffalo, New York, the son of Polish-Jewish refugees. He graduated from Kenmore West Senior High School. He received a B.A. degree in history from the University at Buffalo in 1970 and an M.A. degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 1972.

Career

Blitzer began his career in journalism in the early 1970s in the Tel Aviv bureau of the Reuters news agency. In 1973 he caught the eye of Jerusalem Post editor Ari Rath, who hired Blitzer as a Washington correspondent for the English-language Israeli newspaper. Blitzer would remain with the Post until 1990, covering both American politics and developments in the Middle East.

During his tenure with the Post, Blitzer interviewed several American Presidents and Secretaries of State and broke news from Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. At the time, he was perhaps best known for his coverage of the arrest and trial of Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy in American naval intelligence. Blitzer was the first journalist to interview Pollard, and he would later write a book about the Pollard Affair titled Territory of Lies.

A question Blitzer asked Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat at a White House press conference in April, 1977 may have helped jump-start diplomatic relations between Egypt and Israel. Blitzer asked Sadat why Egyptian scholars, athletes and journalists were not permitted to visit Israel, and Sadat, somewhat taken aback, responded that such visits would be possible after an end to the state of belligerency between the two nations. This was the first time Sadat said that peace between Israel and Egypt was possible. In November of that year, Sadat made a historic visit to Israel, and Blitzer covered the negotiations between the two countries from the first joint Israeli-Egyptian press conference in 1977 to the final negotiations that would lead to the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty two years later.

It has been reported that Blitzer worked as a publications editor for Near East Research, Inc., a publisher affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, in the 1970s.

In May, 1990 Blitzer moved to CNN and worked as the cable network's military affairs reporter. Blitzer spent a month in Moscow in 1991, and was one of the first Western reporters to visit KGB headquarters. His team's coverage of the first Gulf War in Kuwait won a CableACE Award and made him a household name. In 1992 Blitzer became CNN's White House correspondent, a position he would hold until 1999. During this period, he earned an Emmy Award for his coverage of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. In 1998, he began hosting the CNN Sunday morning interview program Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, which is seen in over 180 countries. Blitzer's first assignment as an anchor was on the daily newscast The World Today, in 1999. In 2000, he started anchoring his own show, Wolf Blitzer Reports. CNN selected Blitzer to anchor their coverage of the 2004 United States Presidential election. Since August 8, 2005, Blitzer has hosted The Situation Room, a three hour afternoon/early evening newscast on CNN.

Awards

From Wolf Blitzer's CNN biography:

"Blitzer has won numerous awards, including the 2004 Journalist Pillar of Justice Award from the Respect for Law Alliance and the 2003 Daniel Pearl Award from the Chicago Press Veterans Association. He was among the teams awarded a George Foster Peabody award for Hurricane Katrina coverage, an Alfred I. duPont Award for coverage of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia and an Edward R. Murrow Award for CNN's coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

In November 2002, the American Veteran Awards honored him with the prestigious Ernie Pyle Journalism Award for excellence in military reporting, and, in February 2000, he received the Anti-Defamation League’s Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. In 1999, Blitzer won the International Platform Association's Lowell Thomas Broadcast Journalism Award for outstanding contributions to broadcast journalism. Blitzer won an Emmy Award for his 1996 coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing. Blitzer was also a member of CNN’s team that was awarded a Golden ACE award for their 1991 Gulf War reporting. In 1994, American Journalism Review cited him and CNN as the overwhelming choice of readers for the coveted Best in the Business Award for 'best network coverage of the Clinton administration.'"

Other work

Blitzer is the author of two books: Between Washington and Jerusalem: A Reporter's Notebook (Oxford University Press, 1985) and Territory of Lies (Harper and Row, 1989). Territory of Lies, a nonfiction book about Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, was included in The New York Times list of "Notable Books of the Year" for 1989. In its review, the Times praised the book as "lucid and highly readable" and called Blitzer's "judgment of Israeli officials" "harsh but fair".A review in The New York Review of Books was more critical, prompting a letter from Blitzer accusing the reviewer of making several inaccurate statements. Reviewer Robert I. Friedman responded to Blitzer's criticism, saying that: "Territory of Lies is a slick piece of damage control that would make his former employers at AIPAC (not to mention Israel's Defense Ministry) proud."

During the 1970s, Blitzer wrote for Hebrew-language newspapers using aliases. Blitzer wrote for Al Ha-Mishmar, a newspaper affiliated with the left-wing Mapam political party under the name Ze'ev Blitzer. He also wrote for Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's most widely-read paper, under the name Ze'ev Barak. "Ze'ev" meaning "wolf" in Hebrew and "Barak" meaning "lightning" in Hebrew, the German word for which is "Blitz".

Criticisms and Controversies

During a 2006 interview, Lynne Cheney attacked the anchor by claiming CNN aided terrorists by broadcasting footage of American soldiers under attack in Iraq. "Do you want us to win?" she demanded. The anchor responded: "The answer, of course, is we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There’s no doubt about it. You think we want terrorists to win?"

Cheney also pointed to the network's "Broken Government" special, apparently to illustrate what she claimed was the network's anti-administration bias. . Later, Blitzer said that he had been surprised by Cheney's "sniping at my patriotism."

On September 1st, 2005, during a report on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Blitzer said "You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals, as Jack Cafferty just pointed out, so tragically, so many of these people, almost all of them that we see, are so poor and they are so black, and this is going to raise lots of questions for people who are watching this story unfold." Blitzer was later criticized by Jack Shafer of Slate.com for making what Shafer described as a "campanis moment", a term he coined to describe an instance when a non-bigot says something regrettably racist while speaking extemporaneously. Other critics claimed this comment was indicative of the fact that black poverty and misery was largely invisible to Blitzer (and white America).

References

1. Sheridan, Patricia (3 October 2005). ""Breakfast with...". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 6 December 2005.
2. ^ Makovsky, David (1990-04-29). "Wolf Blitzer, 'Symbol of Integrity', Leaves Post For Cable Network Job". The Jerusalem Post. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. Luxenberg, Steven (1989-05-21). "The American Who Loved Israel Too Much". Washington Post. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |format= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. ^ "Wolf Blitzer". CNN. Retrieved 2007-02-09.
5. Who's Who in America - 2007. Marquis' Who's Who Ltd. 2006. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Unknown parameter |accesssdate= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
6. "Notable Books of the Year". The New York Times. 1989-12-13. Retrieved 2007-02-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. Pear, Robert (1989-05-07). "The Spy from South Bend" (Book Review). The New York Times. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
8. Friedman, Robert (1990-02-01). "'Territory of Lies'" (letter by Blitzer, response by Friedman). New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2007-02-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. So Poor, So Black!

External links

• CNN bio
• CNN.com — The Situation Room
• IMDB
• Media Matters for America articles on Blitzer
• "Wolf Blitzer for the Defense (Department)", Jim Naureckas, FAIR Extra!, January/February 2003

• American broadcast news analysts
• University at Buffalo alumni
• People from Buffalo, New York
• Jewish American journalists
• 1948 births
• Living people
• Johns Hopkins University alumni
• CNN newsreaders and journalists