Michael D. Weiss is an American journalist and author. He is news director at the ''New Lines'' magazine, contributing editor at ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

'', director of special investigations at the Free Russia Foundation and the coauthor of '' ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror''.

Education

Weiss was born to a Jewish family and educated at

Townsend Harris High School Townsend Harris High School at Queens College (THHS) is a public magnet high school for the humanities in the borough of Queens in New York City. Students and alumni often refer to themselves as "Harrisites." Townsend Harris consistently ranks a ...

, a public

magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nickel, ...

high school in

Flushing Flushing may refer to: Places * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in the United Kingdom * Flushing, Queens, New York City ** Flushing Bay, a bay off the north shore of Queens ** Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠), a community in Queens ** Flushing ...

, Queens in New York City, from which he graduated in 1998, followed by

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

in 2002 with a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in History.

Life and career

In 2010, Weiss criticized British Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

after Cameron, during a speech delivered in Ankara, referred to Gaza as a "prison camp". Weiss wrote that Turkish Prime Minister

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...

"is the man whom David Cameron was out to please ... Brutal occupation of Cyprus, subjugation of a

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

minority in everything from politics to linguistics, and ongoing denial of the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...

are evidently Maastricht-compatible initiatives to the new British prime minister". In 2012, Weiss served as co-chair of the Russia Studies Centre at the trans-Atlantic foreign policy think tank

Henry Jackson Society The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is a trans-Atlantic foreign policy and national security think tank, based in the United Kingdom. While describing itself as non-partisan, its outlook has been described variously as neoliberal and as neoconser ...

(HJS). In November 2014, Weiss published a special report in his online magazine ''The Interpreter'' that accused Russia of waging "propaganda and disinformation" campaigns. Weiss's report included recommendations on how to confront Russian propaganda which included creating an "internationally recognized ratings system for disinformation." The recommendations were criticized in an article written by James Carden (executive director of the

lobbying organization In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which ...

American Committee for East–West Accord) in ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

'' as a "censorship campaign." In March 2015, in an article cowritten with Michael Pregent, Weiss accused Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militias of committing extensive atrocities against Sunni civilians in the course of their war against the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...

, including "burning people alive in their houses, playing soccer with severed human heads, and ethnically cleansing and razing whole villages to the ground." Weiss and Pregent suggested that "Iran's Shi'ite militias aren't a whole lot better than the Islamic State." In 2015, he co-wrote the book '' ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror'' with

Hassan Hassan Hassan Hassan (born 1982) is an American author and journalist of Syrian origin. He co-wrote the 2015 ''New York Times'' bestseller '' ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror'' with Michael Weiss. He has written on Islamist groups in the Middle East. H ...

. In 2016, Weiss called Russia a

terrorist state State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111. Definition There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...

and said that "Russian corruption has been described as one of the country’s chief exports". Weiss joined

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

in April 2017. Weiss currently serves as the editor-in-chief for the online magazine '' Interpreter'', which translates and analyzes Russian news, and contributing editor of ''

.''

Personal life

He is married to Amy Thirjung.Michigan,com: "THIRJUNG, GARY S."
February 14, 2013

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Michael 21st-century American journalists Living people American foreign policy writers American male non-fiction writers Journalists from New York City Jewish American journalists American male journalists American political journalists CNN people Dartmouth College alumni Townsend Harris High School alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American Jews