Eleanor Irene Clift (''

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

'' Roeloffs; born July 7, 1940) is an American political journalist, television pundit, and

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

. She is a contributor to

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

and blogger for '' The Daily Beast''. She is best known as a regular panelist on '' The McLaughlin Group''. Clift is a board member at the

IWMF The International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), located in Washington, D.C., is an organization working internationally to elevate the status of women in the media. The IWMF has created programs to help women in the media develop practical so ...

(International Women's Media Foundation).

Early years

Eleanor Roeloffs was born in the New York City borough of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, the daughter of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

immigrants from the island of Föhr in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

. She grew up in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, where her parents ran a

delicatessen Traditionally, a delicatessen or deli is a retail establishment that sells a selection of fine, exotic, or foreign prepared foods. Delicatessen originated in Germany (original: ) during the 18th century and spread to the United States in the m ...

in Sunnyside. Clift was raised a

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

. She attended both

Hofstra University Hofstra University is a private university in Hempstead, New York. It is Long Island's largest private university. Hofstra originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University (NYU) under the name Nassau College – Hofstra Memorial of New ...

and

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admin ...

, but left both schools without a degree.

Journalism career

Clift began her career in 1963 as a secretary at ''

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 ...

'', and was one of the first female reporters to earn an internship from the secretary pool. Working out of Atlanta, Clift became the reporter assigned to cover the then-unlikely candidate,

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

. Clift travelled with the campaign and reported from the road. After Carter's win, Clift became White House correspondent for ''

'' and has covered every presidential campaign for the magazine since 1976. When Newsweek merged with '' The Daily Beast'' in 2010, Clift stayed on to cover politics for the online publication.

Broadcasting career

She began a broadcast career on '' The Diane Rehm Show'' on

WAMU WAMU (88.5 FM) is a public news/ talk station that services the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by American University, and its studios are located near the campus in northwest Washington. WAMU has been the primary Nati ...

-FM, Washington, D.C., as a Friday week-in-review panelist. She became known to listeners for her good-natured acceptance of ribbing from other panelists and callers to the program. She became a regular panelist on the nationally syndicated show '' The McLaughlin Group'', which she has compared to "a televised food fight".Press Forum
/ref> Her role as a

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Sh ...

panelist has led to appearances in movies. Clift played a panelist in '' Rising Sun'' (1993) and appeared as herself in ''

Dave Dave may refer to: Film, television, and theater * ''Dave'' (film), a 1993 film starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver * ''Dave'' (musical), a 2018 stage musical adaptation of the film * Dave (TV channel), a digital television channel in the ...

'' (1993), '' Independence Day'' (1996) and '' Getting Away with Murder'' (1996). She was portrayed by Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live. She was also portrayed by actress Mary Ann Burger in the 2009 film '' Watchmen''. In 2008, she wrote ''Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics'', which intertwines the events of her own life and those of the nation concerning the Terri Schiavo case during a two-week period in March 2005. In it she examines the way people in the United States deal with death, publicity and personality. She was a keynote speaker at the 2012

Washington & Jefferson College Washington & Jefferson College (W&J College or W&J) is a private liberal arts college in Washington, Pennsylvania. The college traces its origin to three log cabin colleges in Washington County established by three Presbyterian missionaries t ...

Energy Summit, where the Washington & Jefferson College Energy Index was unveiled. Contributing to the anthology ''Our American Story'' (2019), Clift addressed the possibility of a shared American narrative and focused on America as a social movement,

writing Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...

, " cial movements are America's story, and they're my story as a woman born in the middle of the last century whose life was made measurably better amid these broad strokes of history."

Honors

Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, a ...

William and Barbara Edwards Media Fellow September 16–22, 2002

Personal life

Clift married William Brooks Clift Jr. (1919–1986), the older brother of actor Montgomery Clift, in 1964; they had three sons before divorcing in 1981. In 1989, Clift married Tom Brazaitis, a Washington columnist for ''

The Plain Dealer ''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio, United States. In fall 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily and 15th on Sunday. As of M ...

'' in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S ...

. They remained together until his death from kidney cancer in 2005.mediabistro.com: FishbowlDC

Bibliography

* * * * * * Eleanor Clift and Matthew Spieler (2012). ''Selecting a President''. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.

References

External links

Eleanor Clift official website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clift, Eleanor 1940 births Living people American columnists American women columnists American political commentators American political writers American people of German descent Television personalities from New York City American women television personalities Hoover Institution Edwards Media Fellows Hunter College alumni Newsweek people People from Brooklyn People from Jackson Heights, Queens