Joseph Medill Patterson Albright
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Joseph Medill Patterson Albright (né Reeve; born April 3, 1937) is an American retired journalist and author. A descendent of the Medill-Patterson media family, Albright wrote for the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' before becoming a reporter and executive at ''
Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
.'' He was later Washington and foreign correspondent for
Cox Newspapers CMG Media Corporation (doing business as Cox Media Group) is an American media conglomerate principally owned by Apollo Global Management in conjunction with Cox Enterprises, which maintains a 29% minority stake in the company. The company pri ...
, receiving several journalism awards and nominations. Albright has authored three books; two with his wife, fellow reporter Marcia Kunstel. He was formerly married to Madeleine Korbel Albright, who later became the first female
U. S. Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
.


Early life

Albright was born Joseph Medill Patterson Reeve in New Orleans on April 3, 1937, to lawyer Jay Frederick "Fred" Reeve and his wife Josephine Medill Patterson, a reporter and airplane pilot. His younger sister
Alice Alice may refer to: * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Literature * Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll * ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
became a screenwriter. His parents divorced in 1944, and in 1946 Josephine married the painter Ivan Le Lorraine Albright. Ivan Albright adopted Joseph and Alice, who took his surname, and with Josephine had two more children, Adam and Blandina ("Dina"). Josephine chronicled young Joseph in a weekly ''
Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...
'' column, "Life with Junior". He attended
Groton School Groton School (founded as Groton School for Boys) is a private college-preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts. Ranked as one of the top five boarding high schools in the United States in Niche (2021–2022), it is affiliated ...
, Massachusetts, before studying at
Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...
. Albright is a scion of a newspaper empire: his grandfather and namesake
Joseph Medill Patterson Joseph Medill Patterson (January 6, 1879 – May 26, 1946) was an American journalist, publisher and founder of the '' Daily News'' in New York. At the time of his death the ''Daily News'' maintained a Sunday circulation of 4.5 million copi ...
founded the New York '' Daily News,'' and his grand-aunt Eleanor "Cissy" Patterson edited the ''
Washington Times-Herald The ''Washington Times-Herald'' (1939–1954) was an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It was created by Eleanor "Cissy" Patterson of the Medill–McCormick–Patterson family (long-time owners of the ''Chicago Tribune'' ...
.'' His great-great-grandfather, Joseph Medill, owned the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' and served as mayor of
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
. Albright's aunt Alicia Patterson was founder and publisher of ''Newsday'', and without children of her own, gave special attention to Joseph and Alice, expressing hope that one of them would succeed her as publisher when she retired.


Career

Albright graduated from Williams College in 1958. During the summers of 1956 and 1957 he interned at the ''
Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...
'', where he met fellow intern Madeleine Jana Korbel, whom he married on June 11, 1959. They had three daughters: twins Anne and
Alice Alice may refer to: * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Literature * Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll * ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
(born 1961) and Katie (born 1967), before divorcing in 1983. He worked at the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' from 1958 to 1961 before joining ''Newsday'' in 1961. In 1963, after the death of his aunt Alicia, he became aide to the president and publisher, his uncle Harry F. Guggenheim. He worked in New York and later became chief of the Washington, D.C. bureau. He resigned from ''Newsday'' in early 1971, and worked as a legislative aide to Maine Senator
Edmund Muskie Edmund Sixtus Muskie (March 28, 1914March 26, 1996) was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 58th United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter, a United States Senator from Maine from 1959 to 1980, the 6 ...
from 1971 to 1972. In 1972 he published a biography of vice president Spiro Agnew, ''What Makes Spiro Run.'' It was regarded as biased against Agnew, and a review in the '' Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' wrote Albright ''"''leans so heavily on superficial commercial appeal that the book should be of little interest to serious political observers." From 1972 to 1975 Albright was a correspondent for the '' San Francisco Chronicle''. He became a correspondent for
Cox Newspapers CMG Media Corporation (doing business as Cox Media Group) is an American media conglomerate principally owned by Apollo Global Management in conjunction with Cox Enterprises, which maintains a 29% minority stake in the company. The company pri ...
in 1976, and in 1983 married fellow Cox journalist Marcia Kunstel, with whom he reported from various foreign locales including South Africa, Afghanistan, Moscow, and Beijing. He was a finalist for the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series on gas and oil policy on public lands. He and his wife shared a 1988 Overseas Press Club award for foreign reporting for their feature "Stolen Childhood: A Global Report on the Exploitation of Children" and a 1991 National Headliner Award from the Press Club of Atlantic City for their reporting on the leadup to the Gulf War. In 1990 Albright and Kunstel co-authored ''Their Promised Land'', an overview of the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other ef ...
as seen through the history of the
Sorek Valley Naḥal Sorek ( he, נחל שורק, translation=Brook of Sorek; ar, وادي الصرار, translit=Wadi al-Sirar), also Soreq, is one of the largest, most important drainage basins in the Judean Hills. It is mentioned in the Book of Judges 16:4 ...
west of Jerusalem. '' Publishers Weekly'' called it: "vivid, observant, achingly poignant", and ''
Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...
'' called "a well-written and sweeping portrait of a troubled land." Political analyst Kathleen Christison wrote: "Uncompromising readers on either side will resent its neutrality. But the book is honest in its choice of historical source material and its treatment of the facts of Jewish-Arab conflict." A review in '' Newsweek'' noted that among the many books on the conflict, Kunstel's and Albright's "stands out for its thoughtfulness, its fairness and its excellent story." In 1997 Albright and Kunstel published ''Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy'', focusing on American atomic spy Theodore Hall, and the married spy couple Morris and Lona Cohen. They supplement their research with interviews conducted with Hall, his wife, and others. Former CIA officer Frederick L. Wettering, reviewing for the '' International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence'', called it "a well-researched and very well-written biography of a heretofore little known spy." Historian
Gregg Herken Gregg Herken is an American historian and museum curator who is Professor Emeritus of modern American diplomatic History at the University of California, Merced, whose scholarship mostly concerns the history of the development of atomic energy and ...
noted it was the first book on Soviet
atomic espionage Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold ...
to use archival sources from both Russia and the Venona project. A film adaptation was optioned to Universal Pictures, with Leonardo DiCaprio tapped to portray Hall. Albright and Kunstel retired in 2000, and since 2001 have owned
Flat Creek Ranch Flat Creek Ranch, formerly a working ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is a guest ranch. The original ranch was established by Cal Carrington between 1901 and 1918 at the base of Sheep Mountain (Teton County, Wyoming), Sheep Mountain, also known as ...
in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Albright has served as chairman of the
Alicia Patterson Foundation The Alicia Patterson Foundation (APF) program was established in 1965 in memory of Alicia Patterson Alicia Patterson (October 15, 1906 – July 2, 1963) was an American journalist, the founder and editor of ''Newsday''. With Neysa McMein, she cre ...
, vice-chairman of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, and from 2009 to 2021 was on the board of trustees of St. John's Health in Jackson Hole. Kunstel has served on the governing council of The Wilderness Society since 2004.


Bibliography

* ''What Makes Spiro Run: The Life and Times of Spiro Agnew'' (1972) * ''Their Promised Land: Arab Versus Jew in History's Cauldron: One Valley in the Jerusalem Hills'' (1990). With Marcia Kunstel * ''Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy'' (1997). With Marcia Kunstel


Family tree


Notes


References


Sources

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External links

*
TwoReporters.com
archive of news articles by Albright and Kunstel {{DEFAULTSORT:Albright, Joseph 1937 births Williams College alumni People from Jackson Hole, Wyoming Medill-Patterson family Albright family Madeleine Albright Living people 20th-century American journalists Newsday people Groton School alumni