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Nina D. Burleigh is an American writer and investigative journalist, the daughter of author Robert Burleigh. She writes books, articles, essays and reviews. Burleigh is a supporter of secular liberalism, and is known for her interest in issues of women's rights.


Early life

Burleigh grew up in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
, and an
Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches ...
area of
Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
. Burleigh stated that her family had "rejected institutional religion" by the time she grew up in the 1970s. "No baptism, no family Bible recording the births, deaths and marriages. My grandfather actively despised churches." Burleigh earned a bachelor's degree in English from
MacMurray College MacMurray College was a private college in Jacksonville, Illinois. Its enrollment in fall 2015 was 570. Founded in 1846, the college closed in May 2020. History Although founded in 1846 by a group of Methodist clergymen as the Illinois Confer ...
, a master's in English from the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
, and a master's degree in Public Affairs Reporting from
Sangamon State University The University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) is a public university in Springfield, Illinois. The university was established in 1969 as Sangamon State University by the Illinois General Assembly and became a part of the University of Illinois s ...
(now the University of Illinois Springfield) in 1984.


Career

From January 2015 to January 2020, Burleigh was the National Politics Correspondent for ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
''. Burleigh covered
the White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
for ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' in the 1990s. In the 2000s, Burleigh was a staff writer at ''
People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
'' magazine, covering human interest stories. She wrote "The Bombshell" column for the New York Observer, and was a contributing editor to ''
Elle ''Elle'' (stylized ''ELLE'') is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, together with culture, society and lifestyle. The title means "she" or "her" in French. ''Elle'' is considered the w ...
''. She has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers, including ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', and ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and websites such as ''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'' magazine, TomPaine.com,
AlterNet AlterNet is a left-leaning online news outlet. It was launched in 1997 by the Independent Media Institute. In 2018, the website was acquired by owners of ''Raw Story''. Coverage Coverage is divided into several special sections related to progre ...
, Powell's
Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...
, and GEN/Medium. She is an occasional blogger at ''
The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
.'' She was an
adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...
of journalism at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and a guest lecturer at the
University of Agder The University of Agder ( no, Universitetet i Agder), formerly known as Agder College and Agder University College, is a public university with campuses in Kristiansand and Grimstad, Norway. The institution was established as a university co ...
.


Middle East

Burleigh worked in the Middle East for many years. Topics she covered included the politics of the Israeli settlements for
Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...
; the emerging effect of Islamists on women in the wake of the
Arab Spring The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in T ...
for ''Slate'' and ''Time;'' and the politics and science of
biblical archaeology Biblical archaeology is an academic school and a subset of Biblical studies and Levantine archaeology. Biblical archaeology studies archaeological sites from the Ancient Near East and especially the Holy Land (also known as Palestine, Land o ...
in Israel for the book ''Unholy Business'' and for the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
''. She spent several years working on a book about biblical archaeology and forgery in Israel, which was published in 2009 as ''Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land''.


Amanda Knox case and Italy

In June 2009, Burleigh and her family moved to the Italian city of Perugia, where
Amanda Knox Amanda Marie Knox (born July 9, 1987) is an American author, activist, and journalist. She spent almost four years in an Italian prison following her wrongful conviction for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a fellow exchange student with ...
was being tried on a murder charge, to write a book. Burleigh intended the story to be an exploration of young women's experiences and media portrayal in the modern world. The book was published in 2011 as ''The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox''.


Melania Trump

In January 2019, the London ''
Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
'' was forced to apologize and pay "substantial damages" for publishing an article written by Burleigh. The article, titled "The Mystery of Melania", was found to contain numerous fallacies. " elaniaTrump often refers to opportunists out to advance themselves by disparaging her name and image," Stephanie Grisham, Trump's communications director, said in a statement to CNN. "She will not sit by as people and media outlets make up lies and false assertions in a race for ratings or to sell tabloid headlines." Burleigh, however, stood by the article in her subsequent book ''The Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump’s Women''. “ On January 30, 2019 Burleigh's lawyers threatened the Telegraph parent company TMG with a lawsuit:


Personal life

In 1999, Burleigh married Erik Freeland, a freelance photojournalist. The couple live with their two children in New York City.


List of works


Books

* ''A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Mary Meyer'' (1998): about
Mary Pinchot Meyer Mary Eno Pinchot Meyer (; October 14, 1920 – October 12, 1964) was an American painter who lived in Washington D.C. She was married to Central Intelligence Agency official Cord Meyer from 1945–1958, and became involved romantically with P ...
* ''The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams and the Making of America's Greatest Museum'' (2003) HarperCollins * ''Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt'' (2008) HarperCollins about Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. Selected by ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' as an editors' choice and by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International for the 2008 Educator's Award. * ''Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land'' (2008) HarperCollins about
James Ossuary The James Ossuary is a 1st-century limestone box that was used for containing the bones of the dead. An Aramaic inscription meaning "James (Jacob), son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" is cut into one side of the box. The ossuary attracted scholarly at ...
. Burleigh has lectured on ''Unholy Business'' at the
Oriental Institute, Chicago The Oriental Institute (OI), established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's interdisciplinary research center for ancient Near Eastern (" Orient") studies and archaeology museum. It was founded for the university by professor James Henry Br ...
. * ''The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox'' (2012) Broadway Books * ''Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump's Women'' (October 2018) Gallery Books . Reprinted as ''The Trump Women: Part of the Deal'' in 2020. * ''Virus: Vaccinations, the CDC, and the Hijacking of America's Response to the Pandemic'' (2021) Seven Stories Press


Television

* 2021 ''Epstein's Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell'': executive producer of this three-part documentary about Ghislaine Maxwell (she is also in the cast, playing herself).


References


External links

* *
Spartacus Educational profileHuffingtonPost.com BlogAlternet Articles''New York'' Magazine Articles''New York Observer'' Articles
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burleigh, Nina Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American atheists American freelance journalists American feminists American skeptics American people of Iraqi-Assyrian descent American women journalists American women writers Columbia University faculty University of Chicago alumni People from Elgin, Illinois Journalists from Illinois American women academics 21st-century American women