Saturday, August 21, 2010
President Barack Obama chose former Time managing editor and CNN executive Walter Isaacson to chair the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other international broadcasts of the U.S. government. He was nominated on November 18, 2009, but not confirmed by the Senate until June 30, 2010.
Born May 20, 1952, in New Orleans, Louisiana, Isaacson graduated from the prep school Isidore Newman School and spent a summer at Deep Springs College as a participant in the Telluride Association Summer Program before attending Harvard. He received a bachelor’s degree in history and literature in 1974, and then attended Pembroke College at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a Master of Arts in philosophy, politics, and economics in 1976.
His journalism career began at The Sunday Times of London, before moving to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. In 1978 he joined Time and served the next 22 years at the national magazine as a political correspondent, national editor, and editor of new media before becoming managing editor in 1996. He became chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and two years later accepted the roles of president and CEO of The Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC.
In October 2005, Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana appointed Isaacson vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, a 33-member policymaking board. In December 2007, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to chair the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership, which seeks to create economic and educational opportunities in the Palestinian territories.
In addition, Isaacson has served as chairman of the board of Teach for America, and as a member of the board of Tulane University, United Airlines, and the Bipartisan Policy Center. He also has served as the co-chair of the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange, a project of The Aspen Institute. He was also a member of the Advisory Council of Permella Weinberg Partners, a corporate advisory and investment firm.
A co-author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made(1986), Isaacson has also written Kissinger: A Biography(1992), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), and American Sketches : Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane (2009).
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Articles by Walter Isaacson (Aspen Institute)
Broadcasting Board of Governors (AllGov)
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