Walter Isaacson FRSA |
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Isaacson in New York in 2012
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Chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors | |
In office July 2, 2010 – January 27, 2012 |
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President | Barack Obama |
Preceded by | James K. Glassman |
Succeeded by | Jeff Shell |
Personal details | |
Born |
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. |
May 20, 1952
Spouse(s) | Cathy Wright Isaacson |
Children | Betsy Isaacson |
Parents | Betsy and Irwin Isaacson |
Residence | New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Alma mater |
Harvard University Pembroke College, Oxford |
Occupation | Author |
Awards |
Benjamin Franklin Medal (Royal Society of Arts) (2013) The Nichols-Chancellor's Medal (2015) |
Walter Isaacson (born May 20, 1952) is an American writer and journalist. He is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C. He has been the chairman and CEO of Cable News Network (CNN) and the Managing Editor of Time. He has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Henry Kissinger.
Isaacson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Irwin and Betty Lee (Seff) Isaacson. His father, Irwin, was a “kindly Jewish distracted humanist engineer with a reverence for science” and his mother, Betsy, was a real estate broker. Isaacson attended New Orleans' Isidore Newman School, where he was student body president. He attended Deep Springs College for the Telluride Association Summer Program (TASP) before graduating from Harvard University in 1974, where he earned a A.B. cum laude in history and literature. At Harvard, Isaacson was the president of the Signet Society, a member of the Harvard Lampoon, and a resident of Lowell House. He later attended the University of Oxford in the UK as a Rhodes scholar at Pembroke College, where he read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE).