Maureen dowd biography husband

American journalist (born )

Maureen Brigid Dowd^[1] (; born January 14, ) is an American columnist for The New York Times and an author.

During the s and early s, Dowd worked for The Washington Star and Time, writing news, sports and feature articles.

She connected The New York Times in as a metropolitan reporter, and became an op-ed writer in Dowd became a staff scribe for The New York Times Magazine in

In , Dowd received a Pulitzer Prize for her series of columns on the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal.

Dowd's columns often explore politics, Hollywood, and gender-related topics. Her writing way has been compared to political cartoons in its exaggerated satire of politics and culture. Some have criticized her writings on female public figures, particularly Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton, as sexist.

Early life and career

Dowd was born the youngest of five children^[2] in Washington, D.C.^[3] Her mother, Margaret "Peggy" (née&#;Meenehan), was a housewife, and her father, Mike Dowd, worked as a Washington, D.C., police inspector.^[4][5][2] In , Dowd graduated from Immaculata High School.^[6] In , she received a B.A.

in English from the Catholic University of America.^[7][3]

Dowd entered journalism in as a dictationist for the Washington Star, where she later became a sports columnist, metropolitan reporter, and feature writer.^[7][3] When the Star closed in , Dowd worked for Time.^[7][3] In , Dowd joined The Modern York Times, initially as a metropolitan reporter.^[7][3] Dowd began serving as a correspondent in the Times Washington bureau in ^[7][3] In , after being tipped off by Jeffrey Lord, she broke the story that Delaware Senator Joe Biden had plagiarized several speeches from other politicians.

The revelation was the first in a cascading series of damaging stories that ultimately ended Biden's first presidential campaign.^[8]

In , Dowd received a Breakthrough Award from Columbia University.^[3] In , she became a Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting,^[3] and in she won a Matrix Award from the New York Association for Women in Communications.^[3][9]

New York Times columnist

Dowd became a columnist on The New York Times op-ed page in ,^[7][3] replacing Anna Quindlen.^[5][10] Dowd was named a Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine in ,^[3] and won the Pulitzer Prize, for distinguished commentary.^[7] She won the Damon Runyon Award for outstanding contributions to journalism in ,^[11] and became the first Mary Alice Davis Lectureship speaker (sponsored by the College of Journalism and the Center for American History) at the University of Texas at Austin in ^[12] In , Dowd was ranked No.

43 on The Daily Telegraph's list of the most influential liberals in America; in , she was ranked No. 37 on the same list.^[13]

Dowd's columns have been described as letters to her mother, whom friends credit as "the source, the fountain of Maureen's humor and her Irish sensibilities and her intellectual take."^[4] Dowd herself has said, "She is in my head in the sense that I need to inform and amuse the reader."^[14] Dowd's columns are distinguished by an acerbic, often polemical writing style.^[15] Her columns show a critical and irreverent attitude towards powerful, mostly political, figures such as former Presidents George W.

Bush and Bill Clinton. She also tends to cite to her subjects by nicknames. For example, she has often referred to Bush as "W" and former Vice President Dick Cheney as "Big Time";^[16] and she has called former President Barack Obama "Spock"^[17] and "Barry."

Her interest in candidates' personalities earned her criticism from some early in her career, such as this: "She focuses too much on the person but not enough on policy."^[4]

Because Dowd perceives her columns to be an exploration of politics, Hollywood, and gender-related topics, she often uses popular culture to sustain and metaphorically enhance her political commentary.^[15] For instance, in a Times video debate she said of the North Korean government that "you could look at a movie like Mean Girls and figure out the way these North Koreans are reacting," drawing out a similarity between their reaction and high educational facility girls with nuclear weapons who just wanted attention.^[18]

Dowd's columns have also been described as often being political cartoons that capture a caricatured view of the current political landscape with precision and exaggeration.^[4] For example, in the run-up to the presidential election she wrote that Democratic candidate "Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct that he's practically lactating,"^[19] while referring to the Democratic Party as the "mommy party."^[4] In a FreshDialogues interview years later, she said of Gore:

I was just teasing him a little bit because he was so earnest and he could be a little righteous and self important.

That's not always the most effective way to communicate your ideas, even if the ideas themselves are right. I mean, certainly his ideas were right but he himself was—sometimes—a pompous messenger for them.^[14]

In January , Dowd recounted that after eating about one-fourth of a cannabis-infused chocolate lock while touring the legalized recreational cannabis industry,^[20] she was later told she should have only eaten one-sixteenth^[21][22]—but that this had not been in the directions on the label.^[23][24] She went on to describe her negative experiences with legal cannabis in a June 3, New York Timesop-ed,^[22][25] following up on this story in another op-ed in September , this time portraying a discussion of using consumable cannabis with her "marijuana Miyagi" Willie Nelson.^[26]

On March 4, , Dowd published a column about the dominance of men in the film industry in which she quoted Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.^[27] According to BuzzFeed, "leaked emails from Sony" suggested that Dowd had promised to provide the draft column to Pascal's husband, Bernard Weinraub, prior to the column's publication.

BuzzFeed said the column "painted Pascal in such a good light that she engaged in a round of joint adulation with Dowd over email after its publication."^[28] Both Dowd and Weinraub have denied that Weinraub ever received the column.

On December 12, , Times public editor Margaret Sullivan concluded, "While the tone of the email exchanges is undeniably gushy, I don't think Ms. Dowd did anything unethical here."^[29]

In August , it was announced that Dowd would become a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine.^[30] Her first article under the new arrangement was published more than a year later.^[31]

Controversial portrayals of Monica Lewinsky, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

Dowd has been accused of sexism by Clark Hoyt, then-public editor of The New York Times.^{[32][33][34][35][36]} A study which examined sexualized shaming of Monica Lewinsky in mainstream news coverage stated that in Dowd's extensive writings about Lewinsky, she repeatedly "mocked and disparaged her."^[37] A study of sexism towards Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in the election observed that Dowd had disparaged Palin as a "Barbie" over her pageantry past.^[38]

Other commentators possess criticized Dowd for being obsessed with Bill, especially Hillary Clinton.^{[39][40][41][38]} During the Democratic primary, Dowd published an article titled "Can Hillary Clinton Cry Herself Advocate to the White House?", which a study said "[serves] to reinforce the stereotype that tears and visible emotions are feminine traits and signs of weakness".^[42] She also published a column where she likened former Senator Clinton to the "Terminator", a ruthless cyborg where "unless every circuit is out, she'll regenerate enough to claw her way out of the grave"; in Jessica Ritchie, a research assistant at the University of Leicester, argued that portrayals such as these sought to portray Clinton and her presidential bid as improper and unnatural.^[43][44] According to then-public editor of The Unused York TimesClark Hoyt, Dowd's columns about Clinton were "loaded with language painting her as a foot woman with a suffocating embrace, a conniving film noir dame and a victim dependent on her husband".^[32] A study by the advocacy group Media Matters of 21 years of Dowd's columns about Hillary Clinton found that of the columns by Dowd since November containing significant mentions of Clinton, 72 percent ( columns) were negative towards Clinton.^[45]

During the presidential election, Dowd penned a New York Times op-ed, titled "Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk".^[46] She argued that Donald Trump held dovish foreign policy beliefs, citing his purported opposition to the US invasion of Iraq.

However, before the publication of the op-ed, it had been reported that Trump did, in truth, support the invasion, and there were no statements on the record opposing it.^{[47][48][49][50]} Throughout Trump's presidency, critics of his foreign policy referenced the Dowd op-ed, claiming that many of the actions taken by Trump were entirely inconsistent with the narrative put forth by Dowd.^[46][51][52]

During the presidential election, Dowd wrote a column about Geraldine Ferraro, which initially—and incorrectly—stated that the last time a man and a woman ran on the Democratic ticket was the Mondale–Ferraro ticket, which led Clinton to joke that "either Tim Kaine and [she] had a very vivid shared hallucination four years ago or Maureen had too much pot brownie before writing her column again".

The New York Times later corrected the column to say that was the last time a male Democratic presidential candidate chose a lady as his running mate.^[53]

Personal life

Dowd is single but formerly dated Aaron Sorkin, the creator and producer of The West Wing.

She was also involved with actor Michael Douglas^[15] and her fellow New York Times columnist John Tierney.^[4]

Honors

In , Dowd received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, presented by Awards Council member Neil Sheehan at the International Achievement Summit in Chicago.^[54][55]

In , NUI Galway awarded her an honorary doctorate.^[56]

In addition to winning a Pulitzer Prize in for Commentary, she was also a finalist in for National Reporting.^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

See also

References

External links